Rob Fitzpatrick

"The founder who taught operators to stop asking if the idea is good."

Rob Fitzpatrick is a founder and teacher of customer conversations. After watching early-stage teams collect compliments instead of facts, he wrote The Mom Test (2013) as a short field manual: ask about their life, not your idea. He later taught the method in founder workshops and wrote Write Useful Books.

1 book·Customer conversations that tell the truth

Books by Rob Fitzpatrick

Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work

Key Ideas & Recurring Themes

Talk about their life

Ask what they already do. Do not ask if they like your idea.

Compliments are not commitments

Time, reputation, or cash. Everything else is noise.

Notable Quotes

"You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea."
— The Mom Test
"It's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it."
— The Mom Test

New to Rob Fitzpatrick?

Start with our most popular summary of their work.

Read the Summary

Book Author Rob Fitzpatrick