Talk About Their Life, Not Your Idea

The core principle, borrowed from Rob Fitzpatrick's book The Mom Test: run interviews so that even your mom couldn't lie to you. People are polite. Ask 'would you use my app?' and they'll say yes to make you feel good, then never think about it again.

The fix is to keep your idea out of the conversation entirely. Ask about the user's life: the problem area, how they work through it today, what it costs them. Their existing behavior is real data. Their reaction to your pitch is noise.

This feels wrong to founders, who are bursting to show what they've built. But an interview where you talked the whole time and got compliments taught you nothing. The information you need lives in their world, not in their opinion of yours.