How Corma Uses "The Mom Test" to Uncover True User Pain Points to better manage software licences

When building a SaaS platform that revolutionises how companies interact with software, it is critical to ensure that the product tackles real customer pain points. But how do you get honest and valuable feedback from potential customers? The Mom Test, a book written by Rob Fitzpatrick, has become somewhat of a bible for the team at Corma when it comes to approaching customer interviews.

The Mom Test was written to help founders and startup teams ask questions that lead customers to give you truthful answers, rather than the answers you want to hear. At Corma, we use this framework to understand the challenges that mid-market companies face in managing their software stack. Here’s how it works for us:

Asking Better Questions

It might be tempting to ask questions along the lines of: “Would you use a tool that centralises your SaaS usage and automates access management for softwares?”. This question sounds normal, but it often leads to biased responses. To not hurt your feelings, customers might answer with “yes” even if they don’t fully mean it. The result is that you’ll walk away thinking that this customer wants your product, while in reality, your customers’ needs haven’t been thoroughly explored.

The Mom Test teaches us to ask more insightful, open-ended questions. Instead of selling our product upfront and asking if they would need it, we ask questions like:

• “Do you have an overview of the SaaS available in the company?”
• “Can you walk us through the challenges you face when onboarding or offboarding employees?”
• “What was the last software contract you renegotiated, and how did it go?”

These types of questions focus on the real experiences of the customers and allow us to understand their pain points.

Avoiding False Positives

One of the biggest challenges we face during interviews is avoiding false positives, where customers give encouraging answers that aren't backed by real need. The Mom Test allows us to uncover the the core issues that make managing SaaS difficult, from lack of centralised visibility to inefficiencies in managing employee accesses.

Asking unbiased questions allows us to understand wether our solution is genuinely solving the problems our customers have.

Driving Product Innovation

At Corma, we set out to provide our customers with the “IT in your pocket” experience for automated user provisioning and managing software licences. The Mom Test helps us get a clearer picture of the pain points our customers face, which in turn fosters product innovation. The feedback we gather through this approach ensures we frequently develop new features to build solutions that truly matter.