You're doing customer research wrong: The 3 biggest mistakes (and how to fix them)

Inspired by Rob Fitzpatrick's book 'The Mom Test'

Problem: Customers tell me one thing in interviews and then behave completely differently. What’s going on?

We’ve all been there.

Spending months building a product, feature or service, based on great customer feedback, only to launch it and hear crickets.

Many people fall into the trap of thinking they’ve validated their idea when, in reality, they’ve only gathered some compliments. Why? Because they’re asking the wrong questions.

I’ve seen this first-hand at the start-ups I’ve worked with and also done it myself with Mane Hook-Up.

And I would always scratch my head and ask ‘why?’. At least until I read the book, The Mom Test (which I highly recommend all founders read to make sure you run better customer interviews).

The principle of the book is pretty simple: people will lie to you—often unintentionally. They’ll tell you what they think you want to hear, or worse, they’ll make predictions about their behaviour that aren’t actually true.

Today, we’ll break down the three biggest mistakes founders make when doing customer research, explain why they’re so dangerous, and show you how to fix them with a few examples. If you want to avoid wasting time and money, keep reading.

1: You're asking about opinions, not behaviours

Why asking about future intentions leads to false data

One of the most common mistakes people make, is asking people what they would do rather than what they have done.

It’s fair to say that humans are notoriously bad at predicting their own behaviours, and when asked in a pretty low-stakes setting (like a customer interview), they tend to give socially acceptable or optimistic answers rather than ones rooted in their reality. This leads to a dangerous trap: founders walk away from customer interviews with a lot of false confidence that their product, feature or service is in demand, only to launch and realise no one actually wants it.

The real cost of bad customer research

Failing to register that customers have given you overly optimistic answers can often cause product launches to fail. Take Google Glass—the initial feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Early testers said they would love a wearable AR device. But when it came time to buy, the sales didn’t add up. The reality? Most people weren’t comfortable wearing an intrusive camera on their face. Google’s mistake was asking what people thought rather than observing their actual willingness to wear the product daily.