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60 Customer Discovery Questions (Mom Test-Approved)

Perspective AI Free Beginner

A ready question bank organized by interview stage, so you walk into a customer conversation with real questions instead of improvising into leading ones. It follows Mom Test principles, favoring past behavior over hypotheticals, and reminds you that the follow-up is where the discovery actually happens. Handy as a printable crib sheet before your first round of conversations.

  • Pick six to ten questions matched to your stage, do not march through all of them
  • Ask about the last time the problem happened, not whether they would use your thing
  • The scripted question just opens the door, real insight comes from following up

The question it answers

  1. What are the biggest mistakes founders make trying to land their first customers that I should avoid?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels... pmarchive.com Essay · ~15 min read The Only Thing That Matters Marc Andreessen
  3. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  4. Video · ~13 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel (YC)
  5. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky
  6. A practical, listen-on-a-walk companion to Founding Sales where Kazanjy walks through the actual anatomy of a founder sales... First Round Review Podcast (In Depth) Podcast · ~60 min Founders: Here's How to Get Your Sales Pitch in Ship-Shape Peter Kazanjy (host: First Round)
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