Key takeaways
🤱 The Mom Test is designed to get honest feedback even from people who love you, like your mom, who naturally want to protect your feelings.
🙋♀️ Ask about past behavior and real experiences instead of opinions about your idea.
🔦 Look for stories about workarounds, hacks, and current solutions people are already using.
🧏🏼♀️ Listen for emotional signals like sighs, frustration, or excitement when people describe their current processes.
🔎 Analyze feedback by separating recurring themes from isolated issues and mapping problems to their impact on users’ time, money, and stress.
🐝 UXtweak’s Live Interviews streamline the Mom Test with real-time calls, screen recording, and automated reporting in one platform.
The Mom Test exists for a reason: because most of us have been lied to by people who love us.
Say you pitch your startup idea to your mom, and she smiles and says, “That’s amazing, sweetie!” Do you feel validated? Sure. But is it the truth? Probably not. That’s the trap founders fall into; collecting polite lies instead of real insight.
The problem is, biased feedback feels good in the moment but sends you building in the wrong direction. What you really need is a way to ask questions that get past the fluff and into what people actually think and do.
That’s what The Mom Test is about. In this post, we’ll break down how to structure better conversations, spot false praise, and validate ideas without getting misled.
What is the Mom Test?
The Mom Test is a way of asking questions so even your mom can’t lie to you. It’s about framing conversations to get real insights instead of polite “sounds great!” feedback.
Rob Fitzpatrick, who coined the term, says you should be a little terrified of at least one question in every chat. That fear means you’re digging past surface-level niceties and into the truths that actually matter.
The name comes from a familiar trap: when founders pitch their idea, people, especially moms, friends, even strangers, don’t want to hurt their feelings. They say what you want to hear.
The Mom Test flips this, teaching you to ask about someone’s life and behavior instead of their opinion of your idea. That’s how you dodge false validation and find answers worth trusting.
The Mom Test vs. a User Interview
At first glance, both seem similar: you’re talking to users, asking questions, and hoping to learn something useful. But the big difference is what you’re learning.
A user interview often gives you opinions and hypotheticals, while The Mom Test forces you to uncover facts about real behavior.
Aspect | The Mom Test | User Interview |
What you actually learn | Hard facts about real problems, past behavior, and current hacks people use | Broader context around needs, motivations, and how users wish things worked |
The kind of questions you ask | Evidence-driven: “When was the last time this happened? How did you solve it?” | User interview questions are exploratory: “What’s frustrating about your current workflow? What would make it better?” |
The risk you run | Low chance of false positives, facts don’t lie | Risk of polite answers, but useful for spotting themes and generating ideas |
The feeling in the room | Sometimes uncomfortable, you’re pushing for raw honesty | More open-ended and conversational, users often enjoy sharing opinions |
The outcome | Proof of whether a problem is urgent and worth solving | Insights that shape product direction, design choices, and user experience |
Value to your startup | Helps validate if you’re building the right thing | Helps discover what to build and how it should feel for users |
💡 Pro Tip
Read our article on the Types of User Interviews to learn more about their differences.
The Mom Test questions
Most founders think they’re doing customer discovery when, in reality, they’re just collecting compliments. It’s not their fault, our instincts push us to ask easy, friendly questions: “Do you like my idea?” or “Would you use this app?”
Rob Fitzpatrick’s makes you realize that the questions you’re afraid to ask, the ones that might expose flaws in your idea, are the ones worth asking.
Here’s the shift in thinking:
👉 Instead of asking for opinions, ask for stories.
👉 Instead of chasing hypotheticals, chase history.
👉 Instead of guessing value, find where people already spend time and money.
When someone tells you, “Last week I spent two hours hacking together a spreadsheet just to deal with this,” that single line is worth more than a dozen “Yeah, that sounds cool” answers.
So here’s the rule of thumb: if your questions feel safe, you’re wasting the conversation.
The right ones should make you a little nervous. That’s how you know you’re edging closer to the truth.
⚠️ Examples of Bad Interview Questions (what to avoid)
These usually get you polite lies or guesses about the future:
- “Would you use an app that helps you manage [X]?”
- “Do you think this idea is good?”
- “How much would you pay for a tool like this?”
- “If we built this feature, would you use it?”
- “Do you prefer [Option A] or [Option B]?” (forces them into your framing)
Questions like these put people in prediction mode or make them play “nice critic” instead of sharing real behavior.
✅ Examples of Good Interview Questions (what to ask instead)
Here are the mom test questions that will get you closer to the insights you need:
- Tell me about the last time you faced [problem].”
- “What’s the hardest part about dealing with [situation]?”
- “How did you solve it last time? What worked and what didn’t?”
- “What tools or hacks have you tried already? Why those?”
- “If you could wave a magic wand, how would you want this to work?”
Stuck on phrasing? 🤔
Tools like GPT or Claude can act as sparring partners.
Write down your instinctive (even bad) question, then ask: “Can you rewrite this so it avoids opinions, future hypotheticals, or flattery and instead digs into past behavior or real struggles?”
For example:
You: “Would you use an app that tracks your workouts?”
AI: “How did you track your last workout? What was frustrating about that?”
This way, AI trains you to think in Mom Test mode until it becomes second nature.
The 3L Method
When framing questions for the Mom test, think in terms of Listen, Learn, and Leap.
👂Listen:
Start with their story, not your idea. Instead of asking, “Would you use this app?”, you ask, “When was the last time you faced [problem]?” You’re listening to their world first, without injecting your solution.
📚 Learn:
Dig into the “why” behind their behavior. If they mention they tried a workaround, follow up with, “Why did you choose that instead of [other option]?” This is where the real gold lies: in the reasoning, not just the surface answer.
🔎 Leap:
Explore what they’d ideally want, but stay non-leading.
📌 Example: “If you had a magic wand, how would you solve this problem?”
This method works because it feels conversational, yet it naturally guides you from context → motivation → aspirations.
Wondering if there’s something The Mom Test can’t handle?
One redditor put it simply:
“Made 50+ products… the only one that didn’t really fit the mom test: Games. But even then, we did a bunch of customer research on art/characters/stories.”
Even for entertainment products, where “problems” aren’t the driver, you can still test demand by digging into what actually excites people, whether that’s art style, storytelling, or character design.
💡 Pro Tip
Learn more about Triangulation in Qualitative Research in this article.
How to conduct the Mom Test
Startups are about focusing and executing on a single, scalable idea rather than jumping on every good one which crosses your desk.
That focus is exactly what the Mom Test helps you build. Here’s how to conduct it:
📍Set a clear goal for the test
Before you hop on any Mom Test call, know exactly what you’re trying to figure out.
Too many founders ask questions like, “Do you like this idea?” or “Would you pay for it?” and get nothing but polite lies.
Redditors shared how they have seen this happen again and again: months of work, thousands of dollars spent, and nothing much to gain.
A good goal is like the truth you’re hunting for:
👉 What problems actually bother people enough that they try to fix them?
👉 How do they handle it today and what solutions are they settling for?
👉 What actually frustrates them, not just superficially, but emotionally?
One Redditor even admitted they couldn’t explain their product’s “problem” to their own mom. That doesn’t always mean the idea is bad, sometimes it means the framing is too jargon-heavy or the problem is too future-oriented (like in deep tech or crypt
💡 Pro Tip
Boil your goal down to a single, sharp sentence. If you can’t, it’s too fuzzy. Every conversation you have should feed directly into that one thing you need to know.
📍Write and structure your questions
Let’s now write questions that build a conversation arc that naturally reveals the truth. Say you’re designing a funnel: start broad, then narrow, then probe.
1. Start wide (context-setting)
Warm up with neutral, open-ended prompts:
- “Walk me through a typical day at work.”
- “What tools do you use most often?”
This sets the stage without biasing them toward your idea.
2. Narrow in (spot the friction points)
Once they’ve painted the picture, gently zoom in:
- “What’s the most frustrating part of that process?”
- “How do you usually solve it today?”
Here, you’re mapping the terrain for pain points.
3. Probe deeper (dig into stakes & emotions)
When something sparks, double-click:
- “Why is that such a big hassle?”
- “What happens if it doesn’t get solved?”
This is where motivations, urgency, and hidden costs surface.
4. Keep an escape hatch
Not every conversation flows linearly. Sometimes you’ll hit a dead end. That’s where wildcard prompts help you find new insights. Try something like:
- “If budget, time, and team weren’t a problem, how would you tackle this?”
- “What’s the one thing you’d love to stop doing tomorrow?”
- “Imagine your ideal setup, what’s different from today?”
These prompts jolt the interviewee out of autopilot and bring hidden wishes, frustrations, and priorities to the surface.
💡 Pro Tip
Plan beats improvisation. Know your questions, the number of interviews, and what counts as a signal before you start. Don’t change course after every conversation; trust the process.
📍Recruit participants and set up interviews
Before you start asking questions, you need people to talk to. Recruiting the right participants is key, they should resemble your target users as closely as possible.
You need to rightly consider demographics, behaviors, and the real-world context of your product.
The goal is to hear from people whose experiences actually matter for your validation, not just friendly acquaintances who’ll nod politely.
📌 Example: If you’re building a productivity app for remote marketing teams, don’t just interview your friends who work in any office job. Instead, reach out to actual marketing professionals who work remotely, manage campaigns, and collaborate with distributed teams. Their real-world experiences will give you feedback that truly reflects your target audience.
Once you’ve got participants lined up, scheduling and running interviews efficiently becomes the next challenge.
UXtweak’s Live Interviews are ideal for conducting the Mom test. With Live Interviews, you can:
- Recruit and schedule real-time video calls with participants
- Record screen interactions to capture behavior in context
- Ask follow-up questions on the fly for deeper insights
- Create powerful reports to be shared with stakeholders
You can also conduct moderated testing to see how your potential users might interact with your future product, if you have a mockup or low-fidelity prototype ready.
All-in-all, you can handle all aspects of the Mom test without the added hassle of switching tools or platforms. Try UXtweak’s Live Interviews yourself! 🍯
📍Conduct the interviews
Alright, you’ve recruited your participants and scheduled your calls, now it’s go time.
1. Talk about their life, not your idea
Let them talk first. Warm up with questions about their day-to-day, routines, or habits.
📌 Example:
- “Walk me through your typical morning workflow.”
- “Which tools do you rely on most?”
This gets them comfortable and sets the stage without biasing them toward your idea.
2. Embrace the awkward pauses
When someone hesitates or trails off, don’t jump in to “fill the silence.” Often, that pause is them thinking, reflecting, or revealing something real. Wait. Let them finish.
3. Follow the breadcrumbs
When they mention a problem, dig deeper with curious follow-ups:
- “What’s the last time that happened?”
- “How did you deal with it?”
- “What was the hardest part?”
Avoid yes/no questions: you want stories, not opinions.
4. Capture behavior, not just words
If you’re doing video interviews, notice subtle things: sighs, eye rolls, hesitations. These are signals of pain points and frustration. Screen recordings can help, too!
5. Let the conversation breathe
Don’t rush to your next question. Some of the most revealing insights come from seemingly tangential stories.
💡 Pro Tip
15–30 minutes is usually enough. Offer flexibility; some participants may choose a longer session, but don’t feel you need more than 15 minutes to get valuable insights.
6. End with clarity
Before you hang up, confirm next steps. Can they try a prototype? Give feedback? Introduce you to someone else?
There are no good meetings. It’s either a YES or a NO. Don’t settle for “keep me posted.” Push for a concrete commitment: time, intros, feedback, or money.
📍Analyze user feedback and create user insights
You’ve run the interviews, now comes the part where most founders either skim through notes or drown in data. Here’s how to write user insights from the feedback:
1. Look for recurring themes, not isolated complaints
One user saying, “I hate this part” is noise. Ten users pointing out the same friction? That’s a signal. Group feedback by common behaviors, pain points, and workarounds.
2. Separate emotion from fact
People will vent, they’ll exaggerate. Capture both: the facts (what they did, tools they used, how often it happened) and the emotions (frustration, delight, confusion). Both are valuable, but don’t mistake strong feelings for priority.
3. Map problems to impact
Ask yourself: Which issues cause the most friction? Which ones cost time, money, or stress? High-impact problems are where you focus your solution, not the cute ideas that sounded fun in the interview.
4. Translate stories into insights
Turn raw feedback into actionable insights:
- “Users struggle to track project deadlines across tools → need a centralized, simple dashboard.”
- “Participants often ignore app notifications → rethink engagement strategy.”
Frame insights as problems first, not solutions. Your solution comes after you’ve validated the pain.
5. Validate patterns with quick follow-ups
If you notice an interesting trend, check it with 2–3 more participants. Small sample confirmation beats assumptions.
6. Document and share
Make it visual: journey maps, sticky notes, or simple tables. Share with your team. Insights only matter if they influence decisions.
💡 Pro Tip
Learn more about Cognitive Biases in UX & How to Limit Them in this article.
Wrapping up
At the end of the day, The Mom Test is all about asking the right questions. The kind that gets you honest answers, real stories, and insights you can actually act on, without the polite “yeses” that lead nowhere.
If you want to take it a step further, UXtweak makes running these kinds of interviews super easy. You can schedule sessions, see how users interact with prototypes, and capture real feedback, all in one place.
Try it for free today and see how quickly you can turn conversations into ideas that actually work. 🐝
📌 Example: