How do I do customer interviews without everyone just telling me what I want to hear?
The short answer
Ask about their past behaviour, not their future intentions - "walk me through the last time you bought [category]" beats "would you buy this?" every time, because people are notoriously bad at predicting their own future purchases and polite about not crushing your idea. The Mom Test's core rule is to talk about their life and problems, not pitch your product, and to treat compliments as a red flag rather than validation. Do this with at least 15-20 people who actually match your target buyer (not just friends and family) before you trust the pattern you're seeing.
A quick summary to orient you. The real value is below: the resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it, not us.
Here are the resources
Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time. India-specific ones carry a badge.
Why we picked it
A founder-voice, long-form account of how Wakefit's early demand testing and customer conversations actually happened, useful for hearing the judgment calls behind the case-study version of the story.
Why we picked it
The definitive short book on why customer conversations mislead founders and how to fix the questions you ask - used in accelerator curricula worldwide and directly applicable to a founder doing pre-launch interviews.
Why we picked it
A practical, ecommerce-specific rundown that combines interviews, competitor research and small paid tests into one sequence a first-time founder can actually follow step by step.
