Product decision game 04
The Mom Test - a customer interview game for product managers
The Mom Test is a free whack-a-mole game about customer discovery. Interview quotes pop up on a 3x3 grid for 30 seconds. Some are noise, like compliments and promises about the future. Others are real pain backed by past behaviour. Whack the noise, keep the signal.
01
How the game works
Quotes rise out of the grid and drop back down after a moment. Noise cards are marked in red: whack them. Real pain cards look plain: leave them alone. The deck is shuffled every round and the pace speeds up, so no two runs feel the same.
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Noise versus real pain
"I would totally pay for that" and "Love the idea" feel great but predict nothing. "We lost two clients last month because of this" is a fact about the past. The game trains the habit of trusting what people did, not what they say they will do.
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What it actually tests
Customer discovery judgement under time pressure: spotting compliments, hypotheticals and feature wishes, and protecting the evidence that a problem is real. It is inspired by the interview approach in Rob Fitzpatrick's book The Mom Test.
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How you are ranked
Whacking noise earns points and saving real pain earns more. Whacking real pain costs you the most. Your final score gives a rank from C to S. Best scores stay in your own browser - nothing is sent anywhere.