Comment by code_biologist

The first 25 pages of Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany (here's a PDF for some Stanford class [1]). Sounds very similar to The Mom Test, but presented from a much different angle. It diagnoses the startup failure mode of excessive focus on product over customer understanding. It hit me like a freight train after my first startup failed. His detailed examination of downstream consequences in other areas of the business, like sales and marketing, are just uncannily accurate to how they played out in my business.

Validate, validate, validate. "That's really cool" is not validation from a customer. "That's really cool. I want it. How much does it cost?" is validation from a customer.

[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/up...