#154 – 如何正确向他人介绍你的事业：与《妈妈测试》作者罗伯·菲茨帕特里克对话

大家好，最近怎么样？我是ndhackers.com的Cortland，您正在收听ndhackers播客。在这个节目中，我会与盈利互联网企业的创始人们对话，试图了解他们的处境感受。他们是如何走到今天的？他们在公司和生活中是如何做决策的？

What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from ndhackers.com, and you're listening to the ndhackers podcast. On this show, I talk to the founders of profitable Internet businesses, and I try to get a sense of what it's like to be in their shoes. How do they get to where they are today? How do they make decisions both at their companies and in their personal lives?

究竟是什么让他们的业务运转良好？一如既往，我们的目标是让大家能从他们的案例中学习，进而建立自己的盈利互联网业务。现在我想在播客中更频繁地做一件事，包括本期节目在内，那就是邀请领域专家。他们擅长某个特定领域，可以与大家分享知识。今天这位专家是Rob Fitzpatrick。

And what exactly makes their businesses tick? And the goal here as always is so that the rest of us can learn from their examples and go on to build our own profitable Internet businesses. Now one thing I wanna do on the podcast a little bit more often going forward, including in this episode, is to bring on subject matter experts. People who are really good at a particular thing so they can share their knowledge with all of us. Today, that expert is Rob Fitzpatrick.

Rob是一位连续创业者，也是Y Combinator的校友。他同时是软件工程师和销售专家。他最广为人知的身份可能是《妈妈测试》一书的作者，这本书堪称创始人如何有效与客户沟通的权威指南。我和Rob的对话已经进行到一半，所以我会直接从我们中断的地方继续。如果您觉得本期节目有用，并希望看到我采访更多专家，欢迎在Twitter上联系我。

Rob is a serial entrepreneur and a Y Combinator alumnus. He's also a software engineer and a sales expert. And he is perhaps most famously known for being the author of a book called The Mom Test, which is kind of the definitive guide for how to talk to your customers effectively as a founder. Rob and I were already mid conversation, so I'm just gonna jump in where we left off. But if you find this episode useful and you like to see me interview more experts, feel free to ping me on Twitter.

我的账号是csallen，可以给我发些建议。闲话少说，有请Rob Fitzpatrick。好的。为什么创始人应该重视与客户交流？为什么这值得他们花时间去做？

I'm at csallen and send me some suggestions. Without further ado, Rob Fitzpatrick. Okay. Why should founders care about talking to their customers? Why is it even something they should be spending time on?

在回答这个问题之前（我会回答的），我想说这包含两个部分。你需要应对两个挑战：一个是意愿或情感上的挑战，比如'是的，我要这么做。我要以这种令人紧张的方式与陌生人或近乎陌生的人互动，或者我要公开我的想法'。

So before I answer that, which I will, I just want to say that there's two parts to this. There's two challenges you got to deal with. There's the kind of the willingness or the emotional challenge, like, yes. I'm going to do this. I'm gonna engage in this scary way with strangers or almost strangers, or I'm expose my idea.

另一个部分是实际操作技巧——如何恰当地进行这些对话并提出好问题。你需要愿意走出去，但这还不够。因为如果你像我当初那样出去尝试，我那么努力过。你知道，我很痛苦。我想写代码，但我觉得必须为团队、投资人和自己这么做。

And then the other part of it is, like, the actual hands on skill of running these conversations properly and asking good questions. You know, you need to be willing to get out there, but that's not enough. Because if you go out there like I did, I tried so hard. You know, I was miserable. I wanted to be coding, but I was like, have to do this for my team, for my investors, for myself.

整整两年全职时间，我做的就是和客户交谈，痛苦极了。结果我们还是倒闭了，我当时气坏了。对吧？因为我想，老兄，如果我承受这么多痛苦，至少该有点成效吧。

It's like two years full time. All I did was talk to customers, I was so miserable. And then we went out of business anyway, and I was pissed off. Right? Because I'm like, man, like, if I'm gonna suffer this much, I want it to at least work.

我最终领悟到的是，在进入下一家公司时，你必须把事情做对。明白吗？这些对话很容易偏离轨道，而且并非所有反馈都是有益的反馈。认识到这点很重要。我们肯定会讨论如何正确处理这些事。

And what I eventually learned, you know, leading into my next company is like, you gotta do it right. You know? These conversations can easily go off track, and just trying to talk like, not all feedback is good feedback. That's an important thing to realize. We'll talk about how to do it properly, I'm sure.

至于为什么这对你有益、为什么值得克服这些学习曲线（无论是情感上还是规模上），是因为它最终会像编程超能力一样发挥作用。比如在我第一家公司早期，我们总是根据市场调研或战略直觉来开发功能。可能花上四到六个月开发某个功能，发布后却发现用户反响不如预期。

As for why it's gonna benefit you and why it's worth overcoming these learning curves, emotionally and scale, it's that it ends up acting like a programming superpower. For example, early in my first company's history, we kept building features based on market research or building features based on strategy or intuition. And we might spend, like, four or six months building something. We'd launch it. People don't like it quite as much as we had hoped.

这是探索创意空间最昂贵的方式。对吧？尤其当你有一个团队时。就算独自开发，如果只能在晚上和周末工作，开发进度也会很慢。

That's a very expensive way to explore an idea space. Right? Especially if you've got a team. I mean, even by yourself. And if you're working nights and weekends, like, development is slow.

对吧？所以损失四个月的开发时间简直是重大挫折。直到某次与人交谈时我才恍然大悟——哇，这次对话直接省了我四个月时间。明白吗？

Right? So if you lose four months of development, that's such a setback. And it really clicked for me when I was having a conversation with someone, and I'm like, wow. That just saved me four months. You know?

这30分钟的对话节省了我四个月的开发时间，简直不可思议。那时我开始对此感到兴奋。另一个让我情绪高涨的发现是：只要方式得体，客户其实很享受这类对话。最初我总带着油滑推销员的心态，觉得占用了对方时间却没给回报。

This thirty minute conversation just saved me four months of development time. That's incredible. And so that's when I started to get excited about it. Another piece that made me excited emotionally was when I realized that customers actually enjoy having these conversations if you do them respectfully. When I first started, I was in very much a sleazy salesman mode where it's like, I'm taking your time, and you're getting nothing in return.

这种心态让我愧疚，因为这不是我想与陌生人或客户互动的方式。后来我意识到，对话对他们同样有价值——如果是他们当天最糟的经历，他们会乐于倾诉。随着经验积累，你就能用自己对问题的见解、他人应对方式等真正回馈他们价值。

Screw you. And that made me feel guilty because that wasn't the way I wanted to interact with strangers, you know, or my customers. And over time, I realized, actually, it's valuable for them as well. If it's the worst part of their day, they love talking about it. And over time, you build up this expertise, and you can offer real value back to them in return just from your perspective on the problem, how other people are dealing with it.

另一个有价值的顿悟时刻是：你们都发布过着陆页对吧？然后就开始纠结——人们真的需要这个吗？我该怎么推广？

Another way it clicks, which is valuable, is you know, you've all launched like a landing page. Right? And you're like, okay. Do people want this? How am I gonna market this?

我该如何让人们看到这个产品？比如你尝试在Product Hunt上推广，尝试各种方法但效果不佳，却不知道问题出在哪里。是产品描述方式、文案、价值主张有问题？还是网站建设方式不对？

How am gonna get people to see this? Like, you try the product hunt. You try all this stuff, and it doesn't quite work, but you don't know why it didn't work. Like, is it the way you describe the products, the copy, the value proposition? Is it the way you build the website?

是应用的用户体验问题吗？如果无法接触到用户，这些问题很难调试。成功时你知道是因为赚到钱了，但失败时却不明就里。而如果事先与用户交流，你就能在发布前弄清所有问题。客户会直接告诉你标语该怎么写。

Is it the user experience of the app? It's very hard to debug that if you don't have any contact with the people. You can tell if it worked because you're rich, but when it hasn't worked, you you don't know why it hasn't worked. Whereas if you're talking to people, you can figure all those things out before the launch. You know exactly what the tagline should be because the customers have told you.

你可以直接问：'为什么你如此在意这个功能？这对你有什么意义？'他们会如实相告，你只需记下来。

You're like, hey. Why do you care so much about this? Why does this even matter to you? And they just tell you, and you go, okay. Take that.

原封不动地把这些话放在着陆页上——这就是我的价值主张、广告文案和营销标语。通过这种方式能理清许多问题，也会让你更有信心坚持下去。

Put that exactly on my landing page. That's my value proposition. That's my advertising copy. That's my marketing tagline. There's so much stuff you can figure out, and it gives you a lot more confidence to stick with it.

因为我看到很多人过早放弃创意。他们推出MVP（最小可行产品）后效果不佳，就说：'我测试过了，行不通'然后放弃。

Because I see a lot of people give up on their ideas too soon. They, like, launch an MVP, and it doesn't work. They go, well, I tested it. It didn't work. And they give up.

这是错误的，永远是错的。这只能证明那个特定版本的产品和营销方式不匹配。如果事先与用户面对面交流过，你就会明白：虽然MVP没成功，但我1000%确定他们需要这个。

That's wrong. That's always wrong. Because all that proves is that that particular version of the product didn't work the particular way you marketed it. Whereas if you've talked to people first in person, you're like, okay. That MVP didn't work, but I know for a fact 1000% they care.

我知道这个需求真实存在，这让我能更从容地不断迭代产品版本，寻找正确解决方案。这种方法能优化所有环节——包括开发动力、产品语言和功能设计。自从学会正确与客户沟通后，我的编程效率和工作满意度都大幅提升。

I know this matters. And that makes it for me a lot easier to keep throwing away versions of products and looking for the correct solution. So it helps with everything, with motivation, with language, with features. To me, my programming got so much more efficient and more satisfying once I learned how to talk to customers properly.

我非常赞同你提到的这一点：你我都是开发者，我们都热爱编写代码。但事实上，通过对话进行迭代远比花数月时间编写错误代码、开发错误功能要高效得多。我认为，在创始人职业生涯早期，人们往往只热衷于构建产品，急于推出某些东西，会觉得与客户交谈是在浪费时间。但基于你阐述的所有理由，事实并非如此。

I love that point that you you and I, we're both developers. We both love writing code, but it's actually way more efficient to iterate through these conversations than it is to iterate through months and months of writing the wrong code, building the wrong features. And I think, you know, early on in your in your sort of life as a founder, you're just excited to build something. You wanna get something out there, and it seems like talking to customers is gonna be a waste of time. But for all the reasons that you've stated, it's not.

你应该多早开始与客户交流？是在构思创意时？在产生创意之前？在编写任何代码之前？还是应该把这些留到后期进行？

How early should you be talking to customers? Should you be talking to them as you're coming up with your idea, before you come up with an idea, before you write any code, should that be something that happens later?

需要理解的是，公司类型不同，与客户交谈的价值也不同。如果你开发的是手机游戏或任何类型的视频游戏——这类产品本质上属于大众消费品，用户痛点并不尖锐。人们喜欢新游戏，只要玩法有趣且更出色，他们就会喜欢。这类产品面临的客户或市场风险其实很小。

It's important to understand that there's different types of companies and talking to customers has different value depending on the type of company you're building. So if you're building a a phone game or any sort of video game, really, like the classic, like, it's not a sharp pain. It's kind of a commodity product. People love new games. Like, if you give them fun and it's better, they will love that, But there's not a lot of customer or market risk there.

这完全是执行风险的问题。我的背景是游戏设计。在游戏行业，通常的做法是从原型开始，先验证核心玩法机制是否足够爽快——核心交互体验是否良好？所以你首先要做出这个简单原型。

It's all execution risk. Like, my background's in game design. And with games, what you try to do is you try you start with a prototype, and you try to prototype the core mechanic and make it crunchy. Like, does the core interaction feel good? And so you lead with that simple prototype.

显然不需要构建完整游戏世界或完成所有美术资源。就像《暗黑破坏神》，其核心机制就是点击怪物看它爆装备的快感。你只需要把这个核心做对，不断打磨直到手感爽快，然后才考虑扩展。

Obviously, you don't build the whole game world or do all of the art or anything. You start with the core mechanic. Like for Diablo, it's clicking on a monster and seeing it explode in a a a loot pinata. You, like, get that right, and you keep working that until it feels crunchy and satisfying. And then you go, okay.

然后才开始向外扩展。彼得·蒂尔所说的10倍产品改进或产品创新也是如此。优步就是典型案例，某种程度上爱彼迎也是，Pinterest更是如此。

And then you start expanding out from there. And that's also true for what Peter Thiel would call his, like, 10 x product improvements, like product innovations. So Uber was an example of this. To some extent, Airbnb was an example of this. Pinterest, certainly.

这些案例中，你无法通过询问用户'你想看按主题排列的矩形照片吗？'来验证创意。Pinterest这类消费级创意很难单纯通过客户对话提前验证，因此更需要用原型来引领。

These are cases where you couldn't talk to someone and be like, hey. Would you like to see photos in rectangles around topics? Like, that's not really a customer interview you can have. So Pinterest, that type of consumer idea is very difficult to prove in advance purely through customer conversations. So there you need to lead with the prototype a bit more.

现在你还是想了解人们的想法，对吧？你可能会进行一些对话，比如：嘿，你是怎么在网上获取灵感的？这是个开放性问题，但它无法证实或否定你的想法。

Now you'd still like to understand people. Right? You might have some conversations to be like, hey. How do you, like, get inspiration online? It's open ended, but it's not gonna prove or disprove your idea.

它只是为你建立同理心和理解的基础。另一方面，有些产品是解决明确未解决的问题，比如企业软件，人们谈论的是止痛药般的需求、火烧眉毛的问题——这些问题正在让企业损失金钱、给我带来痛苦，必须立即解决。在这种情况下，你甚至不用写一行代码，通过对话就能了解所有需要的信息。所以这两种情况下对话都很有价值。如果不能和客户交流，我会感觉像赤手空拳上战场。

It's just gonna give you a foundation of empathy and understanding. Now at the other side of the spectrum, you've got things which are solving an explicit unsolved problem, stuff like enterprise software, stuff like people talk to the pain relievers, the hair on fire problems, the this is costing my business money, this is causing me misery, I need this dealt with right now. When that's the case, you can learn everything you need from a conversation before you've written a single line of code. So the conversations are valuable in both cases. I would feel like I was going to battle without a sword if I wasn't allowed to talk to my customers.

并不是说光靠谈话就能证明一切。这样说有道理吗？

It's not like you can always prove everything just by talking. Does that make sense?

是的，完全有道理。我想大多数收听这个播客的独立开发者可能都在打造后一种业务——为愿意付费的客户解决具体的燃眉之急，我们早期就在进行这类对话。这比为一款游戏之类的产品进行那种对话有意义得多。

Yeah. It makes perfect sense. And I think most people listening to this podcast, most indie hackers are probably building the latter kind of business, the kind of business where they're trying to solve a specific hair on fire problem for customers who are willing to pay for it, and we're having these kinds of conversations early on. Probably makes a lot more sense than than having those kinds of conversations for a game or something.

完全同意。这其实是我现在选择这类创意的原因之一，因为我想提前验证它们。选择解决尖锐问题能大幅降低商业风险，因为你不需要先开发产品。这太棒了。

Absolutely. It's actually one of the reasons I choose those types of ideas now because I want to be able to prove them in advance. And Yeah. Choosing something that's a sharp problem, it just derisks the whole business because you you don't need to build it first. It's great.

它有太多太多好处了。

It has so many so many benefits.

我认为这对独立开发者尤其重要，因为你们没有风险投资，可能也没有很长的缓冲期。就像你说的，你可能在牺牲陪伴朋友家人或发展爱好的夜晚和周末时间工作。所以千万别把时间浪费在那些完全没把握能否成功的想法上。

I think it's super important if you're an indie hacker as well because you're not raising money from venture capitalists. You don't probably have a super long runway. As you mentioned, you might be working nights and weekends that you could be spending time with your friends or your family or on your hobbies. So it's super important to not waste your time on one of these, like, ideas. You have no clue if it's gonna work.

哦，你问什么时候开始比较好。对，我会说现在就行动。立即与用户沟通的原因之一，是你希望在产品能支持时就尽早获得活跃用户。如果你先完善产品再去寻找用户，会感觉毫无进展。

Oh, you you asked how early to start. Yeah. And I would say, like, start. And one of the reasons to start talking to people like ASAP immediately, you want to be able to get active users in your product as early as it's able to support them. And if you make your product ready to support them and then you go looking for the users, it feels like you're not getting anything done.

对吧？可能一两周过去后你会想：去他的，我等够了。这简直是在拖我后腿。

Right? And so maybe a week passes or two weeks pass and you go, you know what? Screw this. I'm done waiting. Like, this is slowing me down.

这种客户调研太蠢了，纯属浪费时间。我直接开发下个功能算了，我知道该怎么做。每次你做这个决定时都觉得合情合理。

This talking to customer stuff is stupid. It's a waste of time. I'm just gonna build the next features. I know what needs to happen. You keep repeating that decision over and over, and it's sensible every time you make it.

很快两年就浪费在死胡同里，你完蛋了。然后你会想：好吧，下次我一定按正确方式做。所以提前沟通、强迫自己这样做，意味着当你需要时他们随时待命。我对所有事都这么干。

And soon you've wasted two years going down a rabbit hole and you're screwed. And you're like, okay. Next time I'm gonna do it properly. And so by talking to people early, by forcing yourself to do that, it means that you have them on reserve when you're ready to use them. And I did this for everything.

写书也是同样。刚有构思开始动笔时，我就同步接触潜在读者去了解他们，同时也为后续铺路——等手稿完成时，砰，第一天就能获得反馈，不用临时抓瞎。这价值连城。而且经常发现我错得离谱，完全南辕北辙。比如我曾想做个投资人管理询盘的CRM系统。

I do it for my books as well. As soon as I have a book idea and I start writing, I'm also starting to talk to my future potential readers to understand them, but also to line them up so that as soon as I've got a manuscript for them to look at, boom, I'm getting feedback from day one instead of having to scramble for it. Super, super valuable. And then oftentimes also, realize I'm just dead wrong, like dead wrong, completely wrong. Like, I had this idea once for, like, a CRM for investors to manage their inbound.

算是邮件与CRM的混合体，用来管理他们的交易流。这是十年前的事了，当时觉得这主意很棒，甚至半夜都会为此惊醒。

It was like kind of an email CRM hybrid to manage their inbound deal flow. This was, like, 10 ago. I thought it was a pretty good idea at the time. And so it was one of these ideas that, like, woke me up in the middle of the night. You know?

当时觉得自己是个天才，这创意绝对惊人。因为我被邮件压得喘不过气，想着投资人收件量肯定是我百倍。所以当天就安排了相关会谈。

I'm like, I'm a genius. This is it. It's gonna be incredible. Because, you know, I was so stressed about email, and I figured the investors must get a 100 times more than me. So I set up a conversation for that day.

你知道吗，我在自己的人脉圈里偶然认识了一位友好的投资人。这在正确开展对话方面很重要。你永远不应该直接推销你的想法。如果可能的话，在早期阶段找个其他借口和他们聊天，然后问问他们目前是怎么处理这个问题的，为什么用那种方式。所以我当时就说，嘿，好久不见了。

You know, I I found a friendly investor who I happen to kinda know through my network. And this is important in terms of actually doing the conversations right. You never wanna pitch your idea. If at all possible, in the early stages, find a different excuse to talk to them and then just ask them how they already deal with it and why they do it that way. So I set up a I was, Hey, you know, it's been forever.

咱们聚聚吧。他说，好啊，可以一起喝杯咖啡。就在闲聊时，我就说，嘿，老兄。

Let's catch up. He goes, Okay. Yeah. I'll meet you for coffee. And just during small talk, you know, I'm like, Hey, man.

邮件快把我逼疯了，真的受不了。我太痛苦了。你收到的邮件肯定比我多得多，你是怎么撑下来的？

Email is killing me. It's killing me. I'm so miserable. You must get so much more email than I do. How do you stay alive?

你是怎么处理这些的？所有这些主动上门的客户线索？懂我意思吗？就这样，我把话题引出来了，对吧？

How do you deal with this? All these inbound leads. You know? And so here, I've brought up the topic. Right?

我们本来就有理由在聊天。我提出了这个话题，然后立刻把焦点转回到他的生活上。这是进行早期客户对话的最佳方式——重点不在于你的想法，而在于客户的生活现状以及他们如何应对那个问题。

We already have an excuse to be talking. I've brought up the topic, and then I pushed it straight back onto his life. And this is the best way to do your early stage customer conversations. They're not about your idea. They're about the customer's life and how they're already dealing with that problem.

他开始滔滔不绝，我眼里简直能看到美元符号在闪烁。知道吗？他说，天哪，邮件啊，那些主动咨询的客户。

And he starts talking and I can just see I've got dollar signs in my eyes. Right? He goes, oh my gosh. Email. The inbound leads.

我们每周大概会收到上千条主动咨询，简直是个噩梦。明白吗？根本没人能处理完，乱成一锅粥。

We get like a thousand inbound leads a a week. It's a nightmare. You know? No one could go through all of them. It's a mess.

你知道吗？我在想，没错。这很好。我正在得到认可。我要发财了。

You know? And I'm thinking, yeah. This is good. I'm getting validated. Gonna be rich.

然后我说，好吧，给我详细讲讲。这是另一个你应该掌握的技巧。每当有人给出笼统的回答时，你就说，再详细说说。给我解释一下。这是怎么运作的？

And I'm like, well, talk me through it. And this is another technique you wanna be doing. Whenever someone gives you a generic answer, you go, tell me more about that. Talk me through that. How does that work?

比如，你们具体做什么？他说，哦，实际上说实话，我们的大部分邮件都是助理处理的。他们直接删掉90%。我们有一整个团队专门做这个。我每周可能只看100封，其中大概10封我觉得不错。

Like, what do you actually do? And he goes, oh, well, actually, to be honest, our associates get most of the email. They delete 90% straight off. We got a whole team of them doing that. I probably only see a 100 a week and maybe 10 of them look good to me.

所以我把他们公司名字写在便利贴上，加上创始人电话，就贴在那边的墙上。他指了指墙上的一小堆便利贴，大概有10到20张。他说每周我会给他们打个电话，看看情况。如果不再感兴趣，就把便利贴扔掉。

So I write their company name down on a post it along with the founder's phone number, put it on my wall right there. He he pointed up to like a little cluster of post its on his wall. They're probably 10 or 20. He goes once a week, I give them a call, see how they're doing. If I don't like them anymore, I throw away their post it.

我当时想，老兄，这方法很老派，但听起来确实是个不错的系统。

I was like, man, that's old school, but it actually sounds like a pretty good system.

是啊。超级简单。

Yeah. Super simple.

他思考了一会儿——之前他还在为邮件的事焦躁不安。他想了想，稍微放松下来说，是啊，其实这确实是个不错的系统。对吧？然后他说，所以你想聊什么来着？

And he thought for a minute and he'd been so agitated about email. He thought for a minute and he sort of relaxed and he goes he goes, yeah. Actually, it is a pretty good system. You know? And then he's like, so what did you wanna talk about?

我有点像是，你知道，你刚刚摧毁了我的希望和梦想。不过没关系。这其实很棒，因为我节省了时间。最终我决定不再追求这个想法，但你本可以轻松地说，有问题的人不是合伙人，而是那些助理。

And I'm kinda like, you know, you've just destroyed my hopes and dreams. Never mind. But that's great because, like, I saved my time. And I ended up deciding not to pursue it, but you might have easily said like, The people with the problem are not the partners. It's the associates.

我需要去和助理们谈谈，而不是合伙人。看看是否能让他们生活更轻松之类的。还有其他方法。就像，仅仅因为收到负面信号并不意味着你要放弃。这就像开车时路上有棵树挡道。

I need to go talk to the associates, not the partners. Figuring out if I can make their lives easier or whatever. There's other ways. Like, just because you get a negative signal doesn't mean you need to give up. It's like driving, you know, and there's, like, a tree across the road.

你不会说'哦，我得回家了'，而是会说'哦，我需要倒车一点，找到另一条通往目的地的路'。这就是当你发现想法行不通时应有的态度。只是这个版本的想法行不通，然后你稍微后退，找到绕行的办法。

You don't go, oh, I need to go home. You go, oh, I need to reverse a little bit and find another route to my destination. That's the attitude you wanna take into finding out that your idea doesn't work. It's just like this version of the idea doesn't work, and then you reverse a bit and find a way around.

我喜欢这个故事，因为它说明了与客户交谈的重要原因之一。我认为作为创始人很容易，尤其是初次创业者，会对自己脑海中的想法过度自信。你会觉得这个想法肯定会成功，我非常有信心，对此感到非常兴奋。

I love that story because it illustrates one of the big reasons why you should be talking to customers. I think it's very easy as a founder, especially if you're a first time founder, to become overly confident in your ideas as they exist in your head. You're like, all this idea is gonna work for sure. I'm so confident. I'm so excited about it.

而且很容易低估现实与你脑海中世界的差异。

And it's easy to underestimate, like, the difference between reality and the world that exists in your head.

当你

When you

真正与现实中的人交谈，询问他们的生活状况时，你会意识到存在巨大的差异。我经常与更有经验的创始人交流，他们对自己想法的信心明显低于那些缺乏经验的创始人。

actually talk to real people and ask them about their lives and what's going on with them, you realize, like, there's this huge discrepancy. And oftentimes, I talk to more experienced founders, and they're significantly less confident about their ideas than the inexperienced founders.

是啊，这真的很让人谦卑。你知道吗？你本可以很自信的。你已经完成了所有这些商业模式画布。

Yeah. It's it's humbling. You know? You you can be so confident. You've done all these business model canvases.

你调查了市场规模，设计好了着陆页，信心满满，结果发现世界上根本没人关心这个。他们就是不在乎。有时这也很让人困惑，因为他们嘴上说在乎，实际上就是在撒谎，尤其是关于健康、环境、可持续发展、回收这类理想化的话题。

You checked the market size. You've, like, you know, mocked up the landing page. You're all pumped, and then you're like, literally no one in the world cares at all about this. Like, they they just don't care. And sometimes it could be confusing too because they can say they care, but they're just straight up lying to you, especially about aspirational topics like health and the environment and sustainability and recycling and all of this stuff.

人们喜欢安全感。人们会说'我们公司真的很重视安全，这是头等大事'。但问到'那你们怎么处理员工使用个人设备的问题？'

People like security. People like, yeah. Our business really cares about security. It's a top problem. It's like, what do you do about people using their personal devices?

实际上什么都没做。'你们怎么解决这个？完全没措施。'但你总不能直接问'你们在乎安全吗？这有多重要？'

Literally nothing. Oh, what do you do about this? Absolutely nothing. It's but, like, you're not gonna be like, do you care about security? How important is it?

他们不可能说'我们公司根本不在乎安全，客户数据对我们一文不值'。同样也没人会说'我不在乎员工福祉'，

And they go, my our business doesn't care at all about security. Like, we don't care. Our customers' data means nothing to us. Like, they just can't say that. And equally, no one goes like, I don't care about well-being.

或者'我不关心环境'。所以面对这些理想化话题时，你必须极度怀疑客户的说辞，真正关注他们当下的行为。如果有人声称'我关心环境'，我不会天真地认为'太好了，我的碳信用生意有戏了'，而是会说'证明给我看'。

Like, I don't care about the environment. So sometimes with those, like, aspirational topics, you need to be incredibly skeptical about what you're being told by your customers and really, really bring it back down to their current behavior. Like, if someone goes, I care about the environment, like, I'm not gonna be like, great. My carbon credits business is gonna work. I'm gonna be like, prove it to me.

给我看看你们已经在做什么，已经在投入多少资金，付出多少努力，尝试过哪些失败方案。我要看到你们已经在行动的确凿证据，否则这些都只是空谈。

Show me what you're already doing. Show me how much money you're already spending. Show me how much effort you're already putting toward this. Show me what you've tried that's failed. Like, I wanna see hard evidence that you're already doing something because if you're not, I think this is all just fluff.

人们撒谎的程度令人着迷，有时甚至是不经意的。我注意到的一点是，人们会抱怨那些根本不是问题的事情。比如，有人会大声抱怨他们多么讨厌Slack、多么容易分心，但实际上他们什么都没做去改变，结果发现他们其实很喜欢Slack，一直在用，只是喜欢抱怨点什么，因为这很容易谈论。作为创业者，很容易被误导认为这是个真正的问题——人们总在抱怨，但现实是这根本不值得解决。

It's fascinating how much people lie, sometimes even inadvertently. One of the things I've noticed is how much people will complain about things that aren't problems. Like, people would loudly complain about how much they hate Slack and how distracted they are, But they're doing absolutely zero to change it and it turns out they actually love Slack and use it all the time and they just like complaining about something because it's easy to talk about. And it's easy as an entrepreneur to get really, like, tricked to think, this is a real problem. People complain about it all the time, but, like, the reality is it's not a problem worth solving.

我是说，真正愿意去改变事物的意愿...这也是为什么从推销开始会带来巨大问题——它让谎言数量翻了十倍甚至百倍。比如我去找易昏说：'听着，我有款产品能让你多活十年，你会变瘦、变性感、有艳遇、感觉超棒、精力充沛。只需要每周来接受三次治疗。'

I mean, willingness to to to actually change things like and one of the reasons that starting starting with the pitch is such a problem is that it multiplies the lies you get by like a factor of 10 or a 100. Like, if I go to Yihoon, I'm like, I'm like, All right, I got a product. It's going to make you live ten years longer. You're going to get skinny, you're going to get sexy, you're going to get laid, you're going to feel great, you're going to be full of energy. It's like you have to come in for treatment three times a week.

就像这种药片，有点疼。会让你虚弱二十分钟，但无所谓，生活继续对吧？嗯哼。

It's like this pill, it hurts a bit. It's going to wipe you out for twenty minutes, But, like, you know, whatever. You move on with your life. Right? Mhmm.

人们会说：'哇，我想多活十年！我想有艳遇！'然后你说：'我的产品是健身房，进来吧。'

People like, oh, yeah. I wanna live ten years longer. I wanna get laid. And then you're like, my product is a gym. Come on in.

他们就说：'呃...我不想要这个。'可你刚才明明说想要所有那些好处啊？但如果你开始推销，就能引导人们接受任何东西，因为你在暴露自我——他们想支持你的梦想，不想打击你的抱负。

And they're like, I I don't want that. It's like but you just said you want, like, all the benefits, you know? But you can lead people to anything if you start pitching because you're, like, exposing your ego. They wanna support you in your dream. They don't wanna, like, you know, slam your ambition.

所以必须克制推销的本能。客户对话的关键就在于避开这些恭维、自我驱动的谎言，以及人们其实没动力去改变的小烦恼，直击核心：他们已经在做或没做什么？为什么做或不做？要不断追问：'哇，你已经在做什么了？'

So you've really gotta resist that pitching instinct. You're like, the whole thing of customer conversations is trying to avoid all these compliments and, like, ego driven lies and these, like, little annoyances that people aren't actually motivated to change and try to get to the core underneath. Like, what are they already doing or not doing and why or why not? And you just keep like, woah. What are you already doing?

'你是怎么处理这个的？搜索过什么解决方案？能详细说说过程吗？'这类问题才是真正的金矿，至少在早期阶段是这样。

How have you dealt with that? Like, what have you searched for? Can you talk me through how that works? Like, those sorts of questions are real where the real gold is, at least in the early stages.

我们正在讨论的是，一般而言，仅仅与客户交谈是不够的。实际上，有一些特定的技巧和策略可以确保这些客户对话富有成效。在你的书中，你提出了一种称为‘妈妈测试’的框架，这是与客户交谈的三条规则。第一条，正如我们一直在讨论的，是关注他们的生活，而不是立即提出你的想法。第二条是询问他们过去的具体经历，而不是关于他们想要什么或未来可能做什么的意见。

So we're talking about the fact that generally speaking, it's not good enough just to talk to your customers. There's actually specific techniques and strategies you can use to make sure those customer conversations are productive. And in your book, you've got kind of a framework that you call the mom test, which is three rules for how to talk to customers. Number one, which we've been talking about is to focus on their life instead of immediately bringing up your idea. Number two is to ask for specifics from their past instead of opinions about what they want or what they might do in the future.

这基本上就是你会被欺骗的方式。第三条是少说多听。那么，让我们具体谈谈如何措辞这些问题。假设我做了那种典型的创业者行为：我向某人谈论我正在做的工作，然后我问他们，‘嘿，’

That's basically how you get lied to. And number three is talk less and listen more. So let's get into some specifics here about how you phrase these questions. Let's say I do the the kinda default ND hacker thing. I talk to somebody about what I'm working on, and then I ask them, hey.

你觉得这是个好主意吗？为什么这不是开启客户对话的好方式？

Do you think this is a good idea? Why isn't that a good way to start a customer conversation?

我不确定这是否普遍，但你会注意到这一点。这就像你可以将真相的重担转嫁给对方。当你问‘你觉得这是个好主意吗？’时，你实际上是在将真相的重担推给他们，强迫他们告诉你残酷的真相。

I don't know if this is a thing, but it's something you'll notice. It's like you can offload the burden of truth onto the other person. So when you say like, do you think this is a good idea? What you're doing is you're offloading the burden of truth onto them. You're forcing them to tell you the hard truth.

这对他们来说是情感上的消耗。就像有人问你他们是否漂亮，你会觉得‘我不知道，兄弟。别问我这个。’这很尴尬。因为这是一个情感上消耗的问题，你被迫去思考，‘哦，天哪，’

That's an emotionally draining task for them. It's like when someone asks you if they're pretty, you're like, I don't know, man. Like, don't ask me that. That's awkward. Like, it's an emotionally draining question because, like, you're forced to like, oh, gosh.

他们的自尊心是否牵涉其中？他们会哭吗？这就像你在自找麻烦，把他们置于一个困难的境地。而如果你换个方式，假设你正在开发一款电子邮件工具，一种对话版本可能是，‘嘿，我正在开发一款新电子邮件工具，它能做这个和那个。’

Is their ego involved? Are they gonna cry? It's just like you're asking to get missed. You're putting them in a difficult situation. Whereas if you go like, let's say you're building an email tool and one version of this conversation is like, Hey, I'm building a new email tool that does this and this and this.

‘你觉得这是个好主意吗？你会使用它吗？你会购买吗？’这将所有情感负担都推给了对方。他们需要处理所有情绪，自己应对偏见，他们未经训练，也不太在意，却要告诉你真相。这非常困难。

Do you think it's a good idea? Would you use it? Would you buy That pushes all the emotional burden onto the other person. And they're meant to deal with all their emotions and somehow deal with the biases themselves, they're untrained and they don't really care, and they're meant to tell you the truth. That's super hard.

另一种做法是你自己承担起责任，先放下自己的想法。试着去理解用户，了解他们如何处理邮件、他们的行为模式。然后作为创业者，我要负责将这些观察转化为洞见，从而为产品做出前瞻性的跨越。

The other way to do it is to take that responsibility yourself where you go like, okay. Forget about my idea for now. Right? Let me just try to understand you and how you already deal with email and, like, what you do and don't do. And then I, as the entrepreneur, am gonna take the responsibility for turning that into an insight from which I can take a visionary leap to my product.

你不是在收集功能需求，也不是在按委员会意见打造产品。你要做的是理解用户的目标、痛点和生活，这样你才能基于更准确的基础做出前瞻性跨越。当然你仍可能犯错——即使基础扎实也可能方向错误，但这就是生活。

Like, you're not trying to collect feature requests, and you're not trying to build a product by committee. What you're trying to do is understand the goals and frustrations and lives of your users so that you can take a more accurate visionary leap or a visionary leap from a more accurate foundation. And you can still be wrong. Right? Like, you can get a good foundation and then leap in the wrong direction, but, like, hey, that's life.

这就是创业。你的认知基础依然有效，因为你仍了解客户。初版产品可能完全失败，但你的认知基础还在，可以尝试不同的跨越方向——无论是新产品版本、新处理方式还是新商业模式。

That's entrepreneurship. But your foundation is still valid because you still understand your customers. So you go, well, version one did not work at all. But you still got your foundation of understanding. So you can try a different visionary leap to like a different product version or a different way of dealing with it or a different business model or whatever.

所以这真是好主意吗？这对他人要求太高了。这不是他们的职责所在——判断创意好坏是创业者的工作。

So, I mean, is it a good idea? It just asks too much of the other person. Right? That's not their job. Your your job is the entrepreneur.

判断创意价值是你的责任。他们能做的只是讲述自己的生活经历，这是他们唯一掌握的信息。而且人们对未来总是过度乐观——即使你问'你愿意为此付费吗？'

It's your job to figure out if it's good a good idea. All they can do is tell you about their life. That's the only information they have access to. Plus, people are just so optimistic about the future if you go even if you go like, hey. Would you pay for this?

他们会说'绝对愿意，每月50美元都没问题'。等你花一年时间耗尽积蓄把产品做出来时，

They will go, I would definitely pay for that. I would pay $50 per month for that for sure. Then you go, great. You launch it and you build it and you spend a year and your life savings. Then you're like, hey.

你说'产品好了'，他们却表示'其实我不需要'。你震惊追问，他们只会说'当时没仔细想'。

It's ready. And they're like, actually, I don't need it. You're like, what? They're like, yeah. I didn't really think about it.

要改变我的整个工作流程会有多麻烦。我得学习新工具，安装它，处理安全问题。我不知道。

How much of a pain it would be to change my whole workflow. I have to learn a new tool. I have to install it. Deal with the security thing. I don't know.

只是我觉得现在挺好。你就像，你刚刚浪费了我一年的时间。对吧？但那是你的错，因为你把负担推给了他们。

It just I'm fine. I'm fine. You're like, you just wasted a year of my life. Right? But that was your mistake because you put the burden on them.

你指望他们告诉你真相，而不是你自己负责找出真相。另外，永远不要问人们是否会支付假设的钱。要么根据他们已经在做的事自己做决定，要么直接向他们要钱。假设的钱毫无意义。

You expected them to tell you the truth instead of you taking responsibility for finding the truth. And as a side point, like, never ask people if they would pay hypothetical money. Either make your own decision based on what they're already doing or ask them for actual money. Hypothetical money means nothing.

这些观点很棒，尤其是关于创始人让客户替他们做工作的部分。没人能告诉你你的想法好不好或生意会不会成功。那是你的工作，需要你考虑所有变量。这是个极其复杂的问题。我自己也多次处于另一方的处境。

These are some great points, especially the point about founders asking customers to do their job for them. Like, nobody's gonna be able to tell you if your idea is good or you've got a great business. That's your job to work out all those variables. That's an incredibly complex question. And I've been in the other situation before plenty of times.

有人问我，'嘿，Cortland，你会为这个付钱吗？'我就做了你描述的事。我很乐观，'嗯，我觉得我会付钱'，因为我不会花一小时认真思考所有让我愿意付钱的细节。等他们真的推出产品时，我就想，'你知道吗？'

People have asked me, hey, Cortland, would you pay for this? And I do exactly what you're describing. I'm optimistic. Like, yeah, I think I would pay for it because I'm not gonna sit around for an hour really thinking, like, in detail about all the things that would get me to pay for it. And then the time comes around when they've launched, and I'm like, know what?

算了。

Never mind.

这不是因为你刻薄。我自己也会这样。别试图欺骗别人。当下我是真心的，就像我每天都想着要去健身房，但从来没去。每次创始人向我推销一个很棒的新产品时，我都觉得我会用，但从来没用过。

And it it's not because you're mean. Like, I do it as well. Like, don't try to trick people. In the moment, I legit just like every day, I think I'm gonna go to the gym, and I never do. Like, you know, every time a founder pitches me an awesome new product, I think I'm gonna use it, but I never do.

只是我很忙。我在处理事情，但就像所有客户也都在忙自己的事一样。所以你需要能够应对这种情况。那句引文是在期待别人总能运用常识吗？这本身是不是常识的缺失？

Just I'm busy. I'm doing stuff, but, like, all your customers are busy in doing stuff. So you need to kinda be able to navigate that. Was that quote like like expecting other people to always use common sense? Is it self a failure of common sense?

对，这其实是类似的情况。

Yeah. It's like the same sort of deal.

所以有些问题你不该问。你不该问：'嘿，我的想法好吗？'也不该问：'嘿，你会为此付费吗？或者你愿意付多少钱？'

So there there are these questions you shouldn't ask. You shouldn't ask, hey. Is my idea good? You shouldn't ask, hey. Would you pay for this, or how much would you pay for this?

当你向别人介绍初步想法时，应该问哪些好问题呢？

What are some good questions that you should ask when you're telling people about your initial idea?

随着你对新想法的推进，信心会逐渐增强，对吧？你会从'有人在乎吗'这种问题，逐步过渡到'应该按什么顺序开发哪些功能'、'上线需要哪些准备'以及'如何定价'。随着基础打牢，问题会越来越具体。

So as you progress through a new idea, you're gonna get increasing confidence. Right? You're gonna move from, like, does anybody care at all through to, like, which feature should I build in which orders and which do I need for launch and what should my pricing be? So it gets more specific as you go because you're building this foundation.

我们为什么不聊聊想法还处于萌芽阶段的早期问题呢？

Why don't we talk about the early stage questions when your idea is still super nascent?

最初阶段的问题是：他们是否在意？在意到愿意花时间学习安装和使用新软件、新工具吗？我想探究的是他们对这个问题的感受。比如给我一个具体领域或行业——生产力软件怎么样？

So at the beginning, it's like, do they care at all? And do they care sufficiently that they're gonna be motivated to, like, bother learning about installing and learning a new piece of software, a new tool, or whatever. So what I'm looking for there is I just wanna explore how they feel about the problem. So, you know, give me a give me a problem space or an industry or something. Productivity software?

生产力软件。太棒了。听起来也超级有抱负，对吧？每个人都以为自己想要提高生产力。

Productivity software. Great. So super aspirational also. Right? Everyone thinks they wanna be productive.

他们读了很多关于生产力的博客，但实际上从不采取行动。就像，他们一边学习这些内容，一边却在积极地不事生产。所以当你问别人：嘿，你在乎生产力吗？顺便说，这些问题问得很糟糕。

They read a lot of productivity blogs, but they never actually do anything. Like, they're just, like, being actively unproductive while trying to learn about this stuff. And so you talk to someone and go, hey. Do you care about productivity? These are bad questions, by the way.

别这么问。嘿，你在乎生产力吗？是的。这对你有多重要？

Don't do this. Hey. Do you care about productivity? Yeah. How important is it to you?

非常重要。哦，那你对能帮你提高生产力的工具感兴趣吗？是的，我很感兴趣。好吧。

Very important. Oh, like, would you be interested in tools that help make you more productive? Yes. I would. Like, okay.

如果有东西真能帮你完成更多工作，你觉得每月为此支付10美元值得吗？哦当然，50美元也行。我的工作很宝贵，时薪可是相当可观。你已经把自己绕进去了。

If something could really help you get more work done, do you think that would be worth $10 a month to you? Oh, yeah, 50 a month. My work's valuable. My hourly rate it's like, voomph. You've just destroyed yourself.

对吧？问完这些问题后你会觉得自己很严谨。但这其实是巨大的假阳性反应。更好的问题是了解他们已经在做什么以及为什么这么做。所以你应该问：嘿，

Right? You come out of that and you feel like you've been rigorous. But it's an enormous false positive. So better questions are about what they're already doing and why. So you go, hey.

你平时会关注生产力相关的内容吗？你在乎这个吗？就像个分类问题——我是在和潜在客户交谈吗？嗯。

You you pay any attention to productivity stuff. Do you care about that? Like a classification question. It's just like, am I talking to a potential customer? Mhmm.

还是说他们完全无关紧要？比如你在开发一款婴儿产品，你问：'你有孩子吗？'对方回答'没有'。你总不能说'假设你有，让我给你推销个产品'吧。

Or are they completely irrelevant? So if you're building a product for babies and you're like, hey. Do you have a baby? And they go, no. You're not gonna be like, well, imagine you did, and let me pitch you something.

所以第一个问题就是：他们属于我的客户群体吗？确认之后，你就可以继续：'太好了，我知道你在乎效率问题。'如果对方不关心效率，你可以多问几个问题找出原因。

Like so the first question is just like, are they in my customer segment? And then after that, you go, great. Okay. I know they care about productivity. And if they don't care about productivity, you might ask a couple more questions to figure out why.

也许他们态度模棱两可，这类人群其实很有意思。但一旦确认他们真的不感兴趣，就该及时放手。明白吗？即使只聊了三十秒——长达一小时的会议简直是客户开发的诅咒，因为多数客户访谈五分钟就能搞定，根本不需要一小时。

Maybe they're, like, on the fence, so that's an interesting segment. But once you realize they they really don't care, just leave them be. Right? Even if you've only been talking to them for, like, thirty seconds, the hour long meeting is, like, the curse of customer development because most custom meetings take, like, five minutes. You really don't need an hour.

总之当你确认对方在意这个问题时，就可以问：'那你目前是怎么处理的？给我说说你现在的习惯，用哪些工具？'他们自然会告诉你。

So anyway so you know they care, and you go, like, hey. Well, what do you do about it? Like, talk me through your habits at the moment. Like, what tools do you use? And they'll tell you.

这类'给我详细说说'、'你现在用什么'的问题，没人会撒谎。谎言在这里无处遁形，回答的都是生活实况。

And these sorts of questions, like, talk me through it. What do you use right now? No one lies. Like, the lies disappear. It's just a fact about their life.

你没有触及对方自尊，也没施加事实压力。回答这些问题毫无情感负担，他们会很自然地告诉你：'我用这个、这个...哦对了你之前试过什么？'

You are not exposing any ego. You're not putting any burden of truth on them. There's nothing emotionally difficult about them answering. They'll just be like, oh, I used this, this, this. Oh, what did you try before?

'哦我用过这个和这个。为什么换掉？因为某个原因。那你找过现有方案的替代品吗？没有。'

Oh, I used this and this. Why did you switch away? Oh, because of this. Like, have you looked for any new alternatives to what you're currently using? No.

我挺开心的。好吧，他们也很开心。对我来说，他们可能没什么紧急问题。而有些人，你问同样一系列问题，这些都是关于：你已经在做什么？为什么这么做？

I'm pretty happy. Okay. They're pretty happy. Probably to me, they don't have an urgent problem. Whereas some people, you might ask that same series of questions, and these are all, what are you already doing and why?

跟我详细说说这类事情。他们会说：是啊，快把我逼疯了。我试过Slack，试过他们提到的其他10种替代方案，还试过看板管理。

Talk me through it, that sort of thing. And they go, yeah, it's driving me freaking crazy. I've tried Slack. I've tried they named 10 other alternatives. They're like, I've tried Kanban.

我试过这个，试过那个，什么都用过了。简直是个噩梦。对吧。

I've tried this. I've tried that. I've used everything. It's a nightmare. Right.

这让我损失惨重。客户订单不断流失，就像生活中最糟糕的部分。我雇过私人助理，结果她卷走了我所有钱；也试过虚拟助理，结果他带着我的客户跑了。

This cost me a fortune. Like, client deals are slipping by. It's like the worst part of my life. I tried a PA, but she stole all my money. Like, I tried a virtual assistant, but, like, he ran off with my clients.

反正就是各种糟心事。你会觉得：哇，这个人真的很在意。对吧？他们要么投入大量精力，要么花费巨额资源来处理这个问题。

Like, whatever. And you're like, wow. This person really cares. Right? They're spending a fortune of either their attention or their resources to deal with this.

他们动力十足。当然，随着产品逐渐主流化和成熟化，不是每个客户都会这么疯狂投入。产品越主流，就能吸引动力不足的客户。但当你还是全新未经验证的事物时（尤其是对企业而言），确实需要那种狂热的第一批客户——而且他们情绪特别强烈。

They're super motivated. Now, obviously, as your product becomes more mainstream and established, not every customer is gonna be this insanely motivated. Like, as you become more mainstream, you become acceptable to less motivated customers. But when you're a brand new unproven thing, certainly with businesses, you kind of need that crazy first customer. And and they're so emotional.

他们那种'啊！'的状态。所以我在聊他们生活时会寻找这种情绪信号。然后我会要求他们做出承诺来证明是认真的。有次我和一位经营创意机构的女士交谈，当时我有款软件构思但还没开发——说实话，我甚至没决定要不要做。

They're so like, ah. Like, so I'm looking for that emotional signal when I'm talking to them about their life. And I'm like, and then I'll ask them for a commitment to kind of prove that they're serious. So I was once talking to a woman who ran a a a creative agency, and I had some software that I was thinking of, but I hadn't even built it. And to be honest, I hadn't even decided if I wanted to build it.

我当时还在探索，比如，这真的值得吗？然后我们进行了一次完美的客户需求探索对话。我们相处得很愉快，聊得很开心。她详细介绍了她的工作流程、生活，以及他们机构处理问题的方式。

I was still exploring, like, is this even worth it? And we had, like, the perfect customer discovery conversation. We got along well. We're having a fun chat. She told me all about her her workflow, her life, like, the way they handled problems at their agency.

她看起来像是我的理想客户。我就说，听着，我们能稍微转换一下谈话模式吗？其实我正在开发一款软件。虽然我说过不会向你推销任何东西，但这听起来简直是为您量身定制的。

She seemed like the perfect customer for me. I was like, listen. Can we switch the mode of this conversation a little bit? I'm actually working on some software. You know, I know I said I wasn't gonna pitch you anything, but it sounds like it would be perfect for you.

如果您愿意花十分钟，我很乐意为您介绍。这是个好习惯——通常当你安排这类客户访谈时，你会说'我只是想学习'，'您只要分享工作和生活就能帮到我'。没错。

If you wanted to take ten minutes, I would love to tell you about it. And this is a good habit. Like, often when you set up these customer conversations, you do it by saying, like, I just wanna learn. I just wanna like, you can help me out so much by just telling me about your life and your work. Yep.

但如果突然转为隐蔽推销就有点不诚实了。所以如果要转换话题，我都会先征求许可：'嘿，这样可以吗？'只要察觉到对方脸上有一丝不适——

And it's a bit dishonest to then switch into a sneaky pitch. So I if I'm gonna do that transition, I always ask permission. I'm like, hey. Would it be cool? And if they're if I detect even the slightest discomfort in their face Yeah.

我就会立刻说'算了算了，您已经帮了我很多，真的非常感谢'。向不想听的人推销毫无意义。

They're like, I'm like, forget about it. Forget about it. Like, you've helped me out so much already. I really appreciate it. You gain nothing by pitching someone who doesn't wanna hear it.

不过她当时说'当然，我很想听听，告诉我吧'。于是我们继续交流，我还画了些线框图。

But anyway but she was like, yeah. I'd love to hear about it. Tell me. So we went through. I drew some wireframes.

我们讨论后，她说'这太重要了，我们急需这个，最快什么时候能用上？'——这反应相当积极。

We, like, talked about it. She's like, this is so important. Like, we need this. Like, how soon can we have it? Now that sounds positive.

对吧？但这只是假设。这是想象中的钱，毫无意义。

Right? But it's hypothetical. This is imaginary money. It means nothing.

她的意思是她可能会支付，或者认为自己会支付。所以她在预测未来。

She's saying she might pay for it or she thinks she would pay for it. So she's predicting the future.

是的，她在预测未来。但我不知道。我要把我的未来押在她对自己未来的猜测上吗？绝不。

Yeah. She's predicting the future. And I don't know. Am I gonna bet my future on her guess at at her future? No.

没门。我要的是证明。而验证的方法就是让他们做出购买决策，要求他们付出一些代价——用'伤害'这个词不太准确，但就是要他们只有认真时才会给你的东西。通常是时间、声誉或金钱，如果是卖给大企业，那就是他们采购流程的秘密，比如预算、采购程序这类。所以就是时间、声誉、金钱。

No way. I want proof. And so the way you do that is by putting them into a buying decision, by asking them for something that hurts is the wrong word, but by by asking them for something that they'd only give you if they're serious. And usually that's time, reputation, money, or if you're selling to big businesses, it's secrets about their buying process, like their budgets, their procurement process, that sort of thing. So time, reputation, money.

声誉通常指引荐或公开推荐。金钱很明显，预购意向书之类的。时间是最有趣的，也是最弱的筹码，但总比没有强。当时我坐在那里想：在还没有产品能证明她是否真是客户的情况下，我能向她要求什么合适的东西？

Reputation is usually intros or public testimonials. Money is obvious, pre order letter of intent, blah, blah, blah. Time is is the interesting one, and it's also it's the the weakest, but it means more than nothing. So I was sitting there, and I was thinking, what can I ask her for that's appropriate given the fact that I have nothing to show? I have no product yet that would prove whether she's a customer.

于是我思考了片刻，然后说：听着，这个东西还没准备好。我们很快就要开始开发了。听起来这对你非常重要。

So I thought about it for a second. I was like, listen. This thing's not ready yet. We're gonna start development soon. It sounds like it's really important to you.

你觉得我这周去你办公室，花两个小时和你的开发团队一起验证这个产品是否能真正解决他们的问题怎么样？整个对话的基调立刻变了。因为我现在要求的是真正重要的东西，不是空口白话。

What would you think about me coming in to your office this week, spending about two hours with the rest of your development team to figure out if this product would really solve this problem for them? The whole tone of the conversation changes. Right? Because I'm now asking for something that matters. I'm not asking for words.

我在请求她开发团队的时间，这可是真金白银。她变得非常严肃，支支吾吾的，我能看出她很纠结。最终，她答应了。

I'm asking for her development team's time. That's cash money. And and she gets real serious. She's like, ah, you know, and I could see she's, like, conflicted. And eventually, goes, yes.

这非常重要。你什么时候能来？我当时想，好吧，她毕竟是客户，对吧？

This is really important. When can you come in? And I'm like, okay. She's a customer. Right?

没错，钱已经转手了，但现在我完全相信她可能会——也可能不会。毕竟世事难料，对吧？她最终可能不会成交。

Yeah. Money had changed hands, but now I completely trust that she's will and she may not. Like, stuff happens. Right? She may not convert in the end.

她的生活可能...谁知道呢。但此时此刻，我觉得她当时处于购买心态，做出了购买决定。所以我会非常非常认真地对待她。这些大致就是经历的阶段，一开始只是简单了解她的生活。

Her life may like, whatever. But, like, at this moment, I'm like, she was in a buying mindset, and she made a buying decision. So I'm gonna take her very, very seriously. So those are kind of the stages it goes through. It starts with this, like, early just tell me about your life.

你在做什么？为什么做这些？到了某个阶段，你已经了解得足够多，建立了关于他们决策方式和优先级的完整心智模型。这时你就可以切换到：好吧，

What are you doing and why? And then at a certain point, you've learned everything you can. You understand. You've got a good mental model of how they make their decisions and their priorities. And then you can switch into this, okay.

我能要求什么承诺来让他们进入购买心态，证明他们真的会跟进这件事？重申一下，这不是在耍花招。有时人们听我这么说会觉得这是某种聪明的销售技巧，

What commitment can I ask for? To put them in a buying mindset to prove that, like, yeah, they're actually gonna follow through on this. And, again, you're not tricking them. Sometimes people hear me say this, and they're like, oh, yeah. It's like a clever sales tactic.

但其实恰恰相反。你是故意想被拒绝，因为你只想把时间花在真正在意的人身上。这像是反销售策略，懂吗？

It's like, no. It's like the reverse of a clever sales tactic. You're intentionally trying to get rejected because you only wanna spend your time with the people who really care. It's like anti sales. You know?

你就像在说，请拒绝我吧。我给你每一个拒绝我的机会。只要他们流露出一点点拒绝的意思，你就立刻撤退。对吧？因为越是逼迫，他们最终总会答应。

You're like, please reject me. I'm giving you every opportunity to reject me. And, like, if they get the slightest hint that they are rejecting you, you're just like, I'm out. Right? Because, like, trying to push them, they will eventually say yes.

就像在酒吧里，如果你够烦人，总能拿到假电话号码，但这其实对你没帮助。对待客户也一样，你总能让他们夸你聪明、点子棒，但这没用。烦人程度够高时，确实能让人对你说谎——但别这么做。

It's like, if you're annoying enough in a bar, you can always get a fake phone number, but that doesn't actually help you. Like, with a customer, you can always get them to say you're smart and your idea is brilliant, but that doesn't help you. Like, if you're annoying enough, you can get people to lie to you, but, like, don't do that.

没错。你只是在伤害自己。我以前确实如此。我曾和一位心理治疗师约会，她特别擅长指出我们行为背后那些微妙、近乎潜意识的动机。我觉得很多创始人和黑客声称找别人聊想法是为了学习和改进——

Yeah. You're only hurting yourself. I used to Exactly. I used to date a therapist, and she was excellent pointing out all these subtle, almost unconscious reasons why we do things. And I think for a lot of founders and the hackers, we say we're talking to people about our ideas in order to, like, learn and improve.

但若细听我们实际说的话，我们只是在寻求赞美。只想听别人说好话，夸我们点子棒。而像你说的，你应该试图让人拒绝你，寻求明确答案。

But if you listen to what we're actually saying, we're just fishing for compliments. We just want someone to say something nice. Someone to say our idea is good. Whereas you're like you said, you're trying to get people to say no. You're trying to get like a definitive answer.

你要找出这个人不成客户的原因，你的想法不够重要的原因，或者他们最终不会购买的原因。

You're trying to find out if there is some reason why this person isn't a customer, if there is some reason why your idea isn't important, or if there is some reason why they're not actually going to buy.

是的。对那些态度暧昧的人，我仍会记下名字和邮箱。保持联系，定期更新，维持友好。可能六个月后我会说：嘿，记得我们很久前聊的那个吗？现在上线了。

Yep. And the ones who are lukewarm, like, I still write down their name and email. Like, I keep track of them, and I send them updates, I stay friendly. And maybe in six months, I'm like, hey. You know, that thing we talked about ages ago, it's out.

大家都很喜欢。想看看的话就在那儿。这些人以后或许能转化，但不会是你的首批客户。首批客户应该是情绪高涨的那种。所以，要寻找这类人。

People love it. If you wanna take a look, it's there. Like, you can always convert them later, but they're not gonna be your first customer. Like, your first customers are gonna be frothing with emotion. So, you know, look for that.

我们来聊聊通过向客户提问来验证你的想法。在你的书中提到，你应该对所问客户的至少一个问题感到恐惧。这具体是什么意思？

Let's talk about validating your idea by asking your your customers questions. In your book, you talk about the fact that you should be terrified of at least one of the questions that you're asking the customers. What does that mean exactly?

我是说，可能这只是我的个人感受，但有些问题一旦你问了并得到特定答案，就意味着你要倒闭了。比如一个常见的问题是：你有这方面的预算吗？显然，任何销售听到这都会笑话我。但作为一个非销售人员，一个当时觉得要价很高的技术宅，这让我很害怕。于是我陷入了这种无休止的会议循环，不断演示越来越好的产品版本，而他们则给我越来越客套的赞美。

I mean, maybe this is only me, but sometimes there's questions that if you ask them and you get a certain answer, it just means you're going out of business. Like, for example, a common one is like, do you have the budget for this? And, you know, obviously, any salesperson listening to this would laugh at me. But as a non salesperson, as a techie dude who is asking for, like, what I felt like was a lot of money at the time, it was terrifying to me. And so I was stuck in this song and dance of, like, these unending meetings, and I was demoing better and better versions of products, and they were giving me nicer and nicer compliments.

我原本希望这些会神奇地转化为销售，但从未实现。最后我在和一家公司（其实是MTV）进行这个糟糕的初级销售流程时，有个在那里工作的朋友通过私下渠道告诉我：嘿，你知道为什么那笔交易没成吗？

I was sort of hoping it would magically turn into a sale and they never did. And I was like, Ugh. And then eventually, I was going through this terrible, infantile sales process with a company, well, with MTV actually, and one of my buddies worked there. And he came to me through the back channel and he's like, hey. You know why that deal didn't go through.

对吧？我当时说我不知道但很想知道。他告诉我后我才恍然大悟——我真的搞砸了。问题出在法律条款、预算和音乐版权之类的事情上。

Right? And I was like, I do not know, but I would love to know. He told me and I was like, wow. I I really screwed that up. And it was like something with legal and something with budgets and something with music rights, whatever.

这些都是摆在眼前的简单事实。我一直担心这些可能成为问题，但又不敢提出来怕吓跑客户。而现在我会想：最可怕的可能是什么？他们能告诉我的最坏消息是什么？然后我会主动去寻找这些答案。

It was like simple just facts that were in the way. And I had always feared those things might be problems, but I I, like, didn't wanna mention them in case I spooked the customer. Whereas now I'm like, what's the scariest thing possible? Like, what what's the worst thing they could tell me? And then I'm gonna try to actively search that out.

当然这些问题的提出需要合适时机。比如刚认识一个人就问'你的预算是多少'确实不合适。但这类问题终究要面对——你必须讨论定价，必须谈钱。

Now there's an appropriate time for this stuff. Right? Like, if you've just met someone for the first time, it's difficult to be like, what's your But, also, like, that question's gotta come at some point. Like, you gotta talk about pricing. You gotta talk about money.

你必须讨论法律条款，必须聊到他们的上司。比如：看起来你对这个很兴奋，但你的上司也需要签字同意对吧？

You gotta talk about the legal side. You gotta talk about their boss. It's like, hey. It seems like this is really exciting for you, but your boss would need to sign off on this too. Right?

可能涉及法务、技术或采购部门。但实际上，这么小的采购金额（不到5美元）不需要法务或采购介入。不过，我老板和技术团队需要过目。

And maybe legal and maybe tech and maybe procurement. And they're like, actually, not legal or procurement. This is a small enough purchase. It's under $5. But, yeah, my boss would need to see it and our tech guys.

这时你会问：'我能和他们直接沟通吗？'——这是个令人忐忑的问题。'你能引荐我吗？'因为如果对方拒绝，就意味着交易终止。这是个关乎信誉的请求。

And you go, can I talk to them? That's the scary question in that moment. Will you introduce me? Because if they say no, it means the the sale's over. That's a reputational ask.

你实际上在问：'你愿意冒险用自己的信誉担保，把我引荐给上级吗？'所以这是个令人却步的问题。我发现我天生有种直觉：最不敢问的问题往往最关键，我努力要求自己直面这些问题。现在对我来说容易多了，对吧？

You're saying, will you risk your reputation by introducing me to your superiors? So that's the scary question. So I found that I have a natural compass where the thing I least want to ask is probably the most important question, and I try to to hold myself accountable. And, like, now it's easier for me. Right?

毕竟我已经干了十二年左右。但头六年里，每次进行这类对话时我依然胆战心惊。所以我琢磨了几个小技巧来保持诚实：在记事纸上写下我想了解的三大重点问题。

Because I've been doing it for for twelve years or something. But for the first, like, six years, I was still terrified of these conversations every time I was having them. So I came up with a couple little hacks to keep myself honest. I would write on a piece of paper, like my note taking paper. I would write the three big things I wanted to learn about.

比如他们使用什么工具？尝试过哪些后来放弃的方案？对安全性的看法如何？当然，问题会随着公司发展阶段而变化。

So, like, which tools do they use? What else have they tried and abandoned? And what are their thoughts on security, for example? Whatever. Your questions will change depending on the stage of your company and where you're at.

然后在纸底部写上：'如果进展顺利，我要争取什么承诺？'这三个问题中必须包含一个让我害怕的内容。比如准备谈钱很可怕，准备要求引荐老板很可怕，准备讨论预算或法务条款也很可怕。

And then at the bottom, I would be like, if it goes well, what am I gonna ask them for as a commitment? And one of the three, like, questions or things, like, somewhere on that had to be something I was terrified of. So it's like, ready to ask for money, that's terrifying. I'm ready to ask for an introduction to the boss, and that's terrifying. I'm ready to talk about budgets or legal or whatever.

我需要了解这些关键信息。这样很好，能让问题尽早浮出水面，使你保持正确的方向。

I need to learn about whatever. And that's good. It bubbles out those problems sooner. It keeps you keeps you on the straight and narrow.

你如何找出这些令人畏惧的问题可能是什么？对你来说，我觉得你经验丰富到可以凭直觉说，嘿，这就是我不敢问的问题。我应该问这个。但对许多新创创始人来说，他们不太确定如何判断自己的想法是否重要、人们是否会购买、是否有预算，甚至不知道存在哪些致命风险。

How do you how do you figure out what these scary questions can be? For you, I think you're experienced enough to just sort of intuitively say, hey. Here's the question I'm afraid of asking. You know, I should ask this. For a lot of newer founders, they're not really sure how to detect whether or not their idea is important or people are gonna buy or people have the budget for it or even what the existential risk factor is.

他们该如何弄清楚这些？

How can they figure that out?

如果是长期销售过程，你最终会明白的。就像那些未说出口的事，或是阻碍你成交的因素。在短期销售中，你可能也会逐渐发现，只是需要通过多个客户而非单一客户来总结。但如果能有个销售顾问或教练会非常有帮助。

If it's a long sales process, you'll get the idea eventually. It's like the unspoken thing or it's what's holding you back from, like, closing the deal. In smaller sales processes, you'll still probably figure it out over time. It's just you figure it out across multiple different customers instead of just a single customer. But it's really, really helpful if you can get a sales adviser or a sales coach.

他们确实很贵，你可能不想雇佣。但若能和有经验的人互帮互助，让他们帮你复盘销售会议或所有会议就很好。理想情况下，最好是擅长初创早期阶段的销售创始人，因为专业销售员太专注于推销和转化。你需要的是熟悉客户探索、善于发掘强烈信号的人。关键是要做好会议记录，事后不要只说'会议很顺利'这种无意义的话。

They're really expensive, so you wouldn't want to hire one probably. But if you can swap favors with someone who is good at it, and they'll help you do postmortems on your sales meetings or your at all your meetings, really. And ideally, someone who's good at, like, startup early stage, like a sales founder would be preferred because, like, salespeople are too focused on pitching and converting. Whereas what you need is someone who who's, like, well, you know, comfortable with the Montez stuff or the customer discovery stuff where they're, like, exploring and looking for the strong signal. But what you do is you take good notes during the meetings, and then afterwards, you don't go, that meeting went really well because that gives them no information.

你要做的是逐句复盘整个会议：我说了这个，他们回应那个，接着我这样说，他们那样答，然后发生了什么，我演示了什么，他们问了什么。就像根据笔记回放比赛录像。

What you do is you talk them through the whole whole meeting, like the conversation. I said this, then they said this, then I said this, then they said this, then this happened, then this happened. I showed the demo. They asked this. You just play by play back from your notes.

然后就要问：我本该怎么做不同？漏掉了哪些关键问题？下次该问什么？最可能导致交易失败的因素是什么？你觉得他们有什么没告诉我？有经验的人能从字里行间立即发现很多线索。

And then it's like, what should I have done differently? Did I miss any important questions? What should my next question for them be? What's the most likely thing that's gonna sink this sale? What do you think they didn't tell me that like, there's a lot of clues, like, between the lines that someone who's a bit more experienced with this stuff will be able to immediately pick up.

比如我现在辅导的团队就做得特别好——他们每次会议都做完整记录，每周发布所有会议笔记。我通读后就能精准指出他们遗漏的关键问题。这种方法真的非常非常有帮助。

And, like, often, like, when I'm advising teams, I'm advising a team right now, and they're the best at this ever. And I'm able to be so helpful because every meeting, they take total notes, and every week, they post all their notes of all the meetings they had that week. And I can just read through all their transcripts. And then I know exactly how like, what they're missing, the important questions. It's so, so helpful.

很多其他团队不会给我那些信息。他们羞于透露实际情况。他们只会说，'是的，我们和客户谈过了，进展很顺利。我确信他们很快就会转化。'

With a lot of other teams, they don't give me that information. They're ashamed to reveal the actual facts. They're just like, Yeah, we talked to a customer. It went really well. I'm sure they're going to convert soon.

但问题是，'这样我帮不了你。'所以要想有效利用销售助手，你需要做记录，然后一步步详细说明情况。这样他们才能帮你处理这些事情。有些独立开发者非常擅长销售，比如Louis Swiss，我相信还有其他人。所以有人会免费帮你，也有人可以和你互相交换资源。

And it's like, Well, I can't help you. So if you want to use a sales helper effectively, you need to take notes, and then you need to walk them through a play by play. And and then they'll be able to help you with all this stuff. There's some indie hackers who are really strong at sales, like Louis Swiss, and there's I'm sure there's a bunch of others. So there's people who will help you for free, and there's people you can swap favorites with.

向Louis Swiss致敬。我们看看会有多少邮件找他寻求免费帮助。

Shout out to Louis Swiss. We'll see how many emails he gets asking him for some free help.

他写的东西总是那么棒。每次他写关于销售或营销的文章，我都会想，'没错，这家伙真聪明。'

He just writes such good stuff. Every time he writes an article about sales or marketing, I'm like, yeah. That guy's smart.

是的。他知道谁厉害。我去年在播客里和你、Heaton Shaw聊过。他的一条重要经验法则是：你应该解决与客户首要挑战相关的问题。这让我深有感触，因为我收到很多推销产品的邮件。

Yeah. He knows who's good. I talked to you, Heaton Shaw, on the podcast last year. And one of his big rules of thumb is that you should solve problems related to your customers' top challenges. And this rang really true for me because I get a lot of emails pitching me products.

很多时候这些产品其实有用，但它们解决的只是我优先级列表上第55位或第100位的问题。这些创始人确实在解决我的问题，但坦白说，这些问题对我没那么重要。所以我最终不会使用它们。我担心很多人创办公司时，解决的都是一些无关紧要的问题。这让我想到一个可能很可怕的问题。

And a lot of times, the products are actually useful, but they're just solving, like, problem number 55 or problem number 100 on my list of priorities. And so, like, these founders are actually solving my problems, so they're solving problems that, like, quite frankly, don't matter that much to me. And so I just don't end up using them. And I I I worry that so many people are starting companies where they're just solving problems that don't matter that much. It strikes me as like a potential scary question.

你该如何提问，才能发现你的产品解决的问题对客户来说是否重要？

How do you ask a question to find out if the problem your product solves is even important to your customer?

所以这个问题你不能直接问，因为他们会对你说谎。这是个极易诱发谎言的问题，因为你把人们置于当下情境中，你在引导他们回答，而他们没有任何参照标准。就像问‘鞋子有时会松开有多烦人？’或者‘电子邮件有多烦人？’

So that one you can't ask directly because they'll lie to you. It's like a very lie inducing question because you're putting people in the moment. It you're you're leading them there, like and they have nothing to benchmark it against. So you're like you're like, how annoying is it that sometimes your shoes come untied? Or, like, how annoying is email?

或者‘交通有多烦人？’人们会说，交通烦死了，是我生活中最糟糕的部分。然后你说，哦，你想过骑自行车或换工作吗？他们会回答，我绝不会那么做。

Or how annoying is traffic? And people are like, traffic is super annoying. Traffic is the worst part of my life. And it's like, oh, have you thought about bicycling or switching jobs? And they're like, I would never do that.

我爱我的车。所以仅仅询问某个问题对我有多重要毫无意义。每次在调查中看到这种问题，我就想，首先，调查纯粹是浪费时间。但关键是，你不能问人们问题有多重要，你需要观察他们现有的行为，不是他们的愿望，而是他们已经在做的事。

I love my car. And it's like so just asking how much a problem matters to me, it means nothing. Whenever I see that on a survey, I'm like, well, first off, surveys are a ridiculous waste of time. But like, you can't ask people how important the problems are. You need to look at their existing behaviors and not their aspirations, but what they're already doing.

假设你在开发一个音乐训练应用，你问，嘿，你想学乐器吗？当然每个人都会说，是啊，我想更懂音乐。谁不想呢？

Say you're making like a anything like a music training app, and you're like, hey. You know, would you love to learn an instrument? Of course, everyone's gonna say, yeah. I'd love to be more musical. Who wouldn't?

但接着要问，那你为此做了什么？你现在花多少时间学习音乐？过去五年你花了多少时间？如果有人回答，我现在什么都没做，基本放弃了。

But then it's like, well, what are you doing about it? Like, how much time are you currently spending on learning music? How much time have you spent the last five years? And if someone's like, well, I do nothing now. I kinda gave up.

但三年前，我花了大概一百小时看YouTube教程，买了很多书，想学这个。我找过教练，但在附近找不到信任的。我经常出差。

But, like, three years ago, I spent, like, a hundred hours on YouTube tutorials. I bought a bunch of books. I was trying to learn this. I looked for a coach but couldn't find one I trusted in my area. I travel a lot.

很难保持规律。这时你会发现，啊，其实这很有意思。尽管他们现在什么都没做，但过去确实为此投入过资源。对吧？这就是我最关注的点。

It's hard to stay regular. You're like, oh, actually, that's really interesting. Even though right now they're doing nothing, they've, like in their past, they've, like, devoted resources to this. Right? So that's the main thing I look for.

就是说，他们是不是已经采取行动了？即便那次搜索失败了，但他们尝试过的事实，真的对我意义重大。比如安全问题，各种各样的人都有糟糕的安全措施，但他们到底调查了多少？如果根本没调查过，不管他们声称多重要我都持怀疑态度。而如果他们态度积极，那就另当别论了。

It's like, have they already done something about it? Even if that search resulted in failure, the fact that they attempted it, like, legitimately means a lot to me. Like, security, like, all sorts of people have bad security, but, like, well, how much have they looked into it? If they haven't looked into it at all, I'm skeptical no matter how important they claim it is. Whereas if they're like, yeah.

尝试了所有这些方法，但说实话根本没用。总是有新的钓鱼攻击，总是有新的骗局。感觉无论我做什么都防不胜防，简直是个噩梦。

Tried all these things, but honestly, it's impossible. Like, there's always a new phishing attack. There's always a new scam. Feels like whatever I do, I can't stay on top of it. It's a nightmare.

你知道吗，我做了大量研究后干脆放弃了。就像，哦，那可能是个潜在客户。属于非消费者群体，但或许能转化成客户，而不是那些完全不在乎也永远不会成为客户的人。所以我更关注他们的行为而非言语，如果可能的话。

You know, I did a ton of research, then I just gave up. It's like, oh, that might be a customer. So that's like the non consumer, but maybe a customer as opposed to the nonconsumer who really doesn't care and will never be a customer. So I I watch what they're doing rather than listen to what they're saying, if at all possible.

我很赞同你关于观察资源流向的观点。他们在时间投入上侧重什么？资金流向哪里？我刚在ND Hackers发了篇关于商业创意头脑风暴的帖子，最初阶段就是在与人交谈前先构思点子——关键线索就是看企业和客户已经在哪些方面大量烧钱？

I love the point you made about seeing where they're diverting their resources to. Where are they spending their time? Where are they spending their money? I just wrote a post on ND Hackers about how to brainstorm good business ideas. The very first step where you're just trying to come up with an idea before you even talk to anybody, and a huge clue is like, well, what are companies or customers already spending a ton of money on?

这确实是个重要信号，说明那里存在价值。对吧？人们不会在不关心的事物上大量投入。所以我特别喜欢这种提问方式，明白吗？

That's a pretty huge clue that there's something that's valuable there. Right? People don't spend a ton of money on things they don't care about. And so I love this idea of asking a question. You know?

你为这事投入了多少时间？花了多少钱？你到底有多在乎？这算是种快捷的提问方式。

How much time have you spent trying to do this? How much money have you spent doing this? How much do you really care? That's that's kind of a shortcut way of of asking that.

没错。任何形式的关注都算数，不一定是金钱。金钱确实有效，但有时也会适得其反。

Exactly. Mean, any sort of attention. It doesn't have to be money. Money works. Sometimes money can backfire as well.

这简直太不明显了。要触及真相是如此微妙的事情。这真的像一门手艺。你会了解到这些是因为我曾尝试向大学推销一些东西，在交谈中他们说，是的，这个可以完成我们现在由四个人全职团队在做的工作，明白吗？嗯。

It's such like it's it's so non obvious. It's such a subtle thing to get to the truth. It's really like it's a craft. It's something you learn about because I I was trying to sell some stuff to universities once and during the talks, they're like, yeah, this would this would do the job that we've currently got a team of four full time people doing, you know? Mhmm.

我在心里算了一下，觉得，哦，那至少值每年25万美元。你知道的？根据公开的薪资数据之类的，你可以算出来。我当时就想，哇，这太棒了。

And I'm doing the mental math and I'm like, oh, that's worth at least a quarter million a year. You know? And I sort of like, you know, public salaries and stuff, you can figure it out. And I'm like, oh, wow. This is great.

所以我只向他们每年收费20美元，这根本不用想。能省下10倍的钱。对吧？但我没意识到的是，公立机构不能随便解雇人。所有人都有工会保护。

So I'm only charging them $20 a year, so this is a no brainer. That's a 10 x savings. Right? But what I hadn't realized is, like, a public institution, they're not allowed to fire anyone. Everyone's unioned.

每个人都受到保护。没错。薪资已经是预算的一部分，他们不能直接把薪资预算转到工具预算上。工具预算也已经分配好了，而且少得多。而‘你可以解雇四名员工’这样的推销点，对企业可能有吸引力，但对公立机构完全无效。

Everyone's protected. Right. Like, the salaries are already an allocated budget, and they can't just switch salary budget into tool budget. Their tool budget is also already allocated and is much smaller. And the pitch of like you get to fire four employees, well, might be compelling to a business is not compelling to a public institution.

这就是一个金钱严重误导我的案例。我以为每年帮他们节省23万美元会让他们喜欢我的软件，实际上这根本行不通。

So that was a case where the money really misled me and I thought that because I was saving them 2 and $30 per year that they would like my software when in fact it was a total nonstarter.

所以这是一个更广泛的问题范围，你需要去发现客户这类细节信息。我对这些人还有什么不了解的？我可能做了哪些假设？在这个案例里，你假设大学运作方式和企业一样。后来你发现事实并非如此。

So this is whole broader this whole broader, I guess, range of questions where you're just trying to find out details like that about your customers. What do I not know about these people? What assumptions might I be having? In this particular case, your assumption was a university operates like a business. And at some point, you discovered that that wasn't the case.

你是怎么发现这一点的？

How did you find how did you find that out?

嗯，我破产了。这是主要的原因。随着时间的推移，你会发现与你交谈的某些人，你们会特别合拍。这种现象我形容为他们逐渐站到了你这边。那种感觉不再像是在推销、面试或了解他们。

Well, I went out of business. That was the the main way. Now now what happens is over time, you'll like you'll find some of the people you're talking to, you'll click with really well. And it's a phenomenon that I describe as like they they come around to your side of the table. It start it stops feeling like you're pitching them or interviewing them or learning about them.

而开始感觉像是他们站在你这边，帮助你理解他们公司的其他部分或行业的其他方面。整个氛围都变了，你觉得所有防备都放下了，你可以直接说：听着，我真的很困惑。我觉得我们发现了令人兴奋的东西，但我完全不知道该怎么做。你可以暴露出这种程度的脆弱，而他们并不认为这是弱点。

And it starts to feel like they're on your side helping you to understand the rest of their company or the rest of their industry. The whole dynamic changes, and you feel like all the shields drop, and you can just be like, listen. I am so confused. I think we're on to something exciting, but I I have no idea what we should be doing about this. And you feel like you can reveal that level of weakness, they and don't see it as weakness.

他们视之为帮助的机会。他们真的站在你这边。他们几乎就像是客户的联合创始人。是的，这就是史蒂夫·布兰克所说的早期布道者。

They see it as an opportunity to help. They're really on your side. They're almost like the the customer cofounder. Yeah. I mean, this is what Steve Blank calls us early evangelists.

这样的人很罕见，一百个里可能只有一两个。但当你找到他们时，他们无比珍贵。这时你才能真正填补关于问题所在和行业各种奇怪小细节的所有空白。有时你也可以更直接地通过咨询行业专家、记者、投资者、曾在这个行业出售公司并已离职的创始人（因此不再有竞争利益），或是最近退休的行业资深高管来获取信息。

They're rare, one in 21 in a 100. But when you find them, they're super precious. And that's when you can really fill in all these blanks about what's going wrong and all these weird little quirks of the industry. You can sometimes also get it a bit more directly by going to industry experts, journalists, investors, founders who have sold a company in this industry and have since quit, so they no longer have a competitive interest. Executives who were senior in your industry and have recently retired.

这些人都相当无聊，他们很乐意分享自己在行业中辛苦获得的专业知识。所以你可以和这样的人坐下来聊聊。不过他们不是客户，对吧？所以你不会根据他们是否会购买你的产品来评估他们的反馈，但你会非常重视他们关于'这个行业如何运作'的见解。

All of these people are quite bored, and they're happy to share their hard won expertise about the industry. So you can sit down with a person like that. Now they're not a customer. Right? So you don't value their feedback in terms of whether or not people are gonna buy your product, but you very much value their feedback in terms of like, hey, how does this industry work?

比如，我会遇到哪些障碍？如果这是你的生意，你最害怕什么？你会最积极地收集哪些信息？与行业专家的几次对话——虽然我接触的专家远没有客户多——我尽量每周与几个客户交谈，保持信息的持续输入。

Like, what obstacles are gonna be standing in my way? Like, if this was your business, what would you be most frightened frightened by? What information would be you'd be looking to gather most aggressively? And a couple conversations with an industry expert, I don't have nearly as much of them as I do with customers. Like, I I try to talk to a few customers every week just to keep a steady drip of information coming in.

而我可能总共只会与一两位行业专家交谈，就像做尽职调查那样。当然，你首先应该通过谷歌尽可能多地学习，因为你不希望显得不尊重他们的时间。但他们理解。即使是看似简单的行业如在线广告，其背后也有许多未被记录的微妙之处。你真的需要一个在该行业工作过十年或二十年的人来向你解释所有的细节。

Whereas I might talk to one or two industry experts at all, like, just, you know, one time, just, like, do my due diligence. And, obviously, you wanna learn as much as you can from Google, first because you don't wanna seem like you're not respecting their time. But they understand. Even with an industry that seems simple like online advertising, there's so much subtlety under the hood that's just not written about anywhere. And you really need someone who's been in that industry for ten or twenty years to kind of explain to you all the nuance.

所以他们得到了这个，而且他们超级乐意分享他们的秘密知识。

So they get that, and they're they're, like, super happy to share their secret knowledge.

是的。我在独立开发者社区经常看到这种情况。人们把与潜在客户或可能真正购买产品的人交谈，和与其他创始人或专家交谈混为一谈。但其实这两类人不一样。除非他们确实是你的用户，否则这些人并不是你的用户群体。

Yeah. I see this a lot on indie hackers. People confuse talking to potential customers or people who might actually buy their product with talking to other founders or maybe experts. And it's like, that's not the same group of people. These people are not like, they're not your users unless they are.

如果你的目标客户是初创公司创始人，那没问题。但如果我在和你说话，Rob，我会向你寻求战略建议。我会问：Rob，我该怎么和客户沟通？我该发调查问卷吗？还是该做其他什么？

If you're selling to Starter Founders, that's fine. But if I'm talking to you, Rob, I'm gonna be asking you for strategic advice. I'm gonna be like, Rob, how do I talk to customers? What like, know, should I send surveys? Should I do whatever?

我不会问你的生活近况，也不会问你对我的落地页有什么看法，因为在这些问题上你的意见并不重要。

I'm not gonna be asking what's going on in your life or asking what you think about my landing page or whatever because your opinion doesn't really matter on that.

是啊，我觉得这很离谱。他们又不是你的客户，你干嘛在乎他们的想法？除非你有具体需求，比如你非母语人士想确保自己的语言表达准确。

Yeah. I think it's crazy. Like, they're not your customers. Why do you care what they think? It's like unless you're have a specific ask, like, you're a non native speaker and you're trying to make sure your your, like, language is sharp.

你之前提到一点我想请教：你说不应该发调查问卷，因为问卷是无效的。第一，为什么问卷无效？第二，你应该用哪些其他沟通方式来接触客户？

You said something earlier that I wanted to ask you about, which is that you shouldn't send surveys that surveys are ineffective. Number one, why are surveys ineffective? And number two, what are these other forms of communication that you should be using to talk to your customers?

偶尔会有人误发问卷给我，问我对问卷的看法或问题设置是否合理。每次我都只能回复：别用问卷。这真的让我很恼火，是我的一个痛点。问卷的问题在于：任何适合问卷的内容，别人早就研究过了，你直接谷歌就能找到答案。

Occasionally, someone makes the mistake of sending me a survey and asking me what I think about it or whether it's good questions. And, like, I always just end up being like, don't use surveys. It makes me so mad. It's a real pet peeve. So the issue with surveys is that, like, anything that fits on a survey, someone else has already done the research about, and you could just Google it.

就像问卷调查中能问的任何问题都可以通过谷歌搜索得到答案。而那些无法在问卷中询问的内容，比如决策过程、他们在哪些方面会感到紧张或害怕、情感因素或决策考量等，这些在问卷中完全无法体现。你可能会说，好吧，我留个文本框让他们填写。但这根本没用。

Like any question you could ask on a survey could be Googled. Whereas the things that you can't ask on a survey, like decision making process or like where they get nervous or scared about this area or like the emotional side or the decision making side. That stuff does not come across at all in a survey. You're like, yeah, I'll leave a text entry field. That doesn't work.

你会收到各种随机的想法和垃圾信息。你根本无法评估——他们是真正的客户吗？还是只是粉丝？这种情况下，拥有大量受众反而对你不利，因为会有一群只是你粉丝的人试图'帮忙'。他们会说'哦，好的'。

You get random ideas and garbage. You can't evaluate, are they customers? Are they fans? This is a case where having a big audience works against you because you get a bunch of people who are just fans of yours trying to be helpful. And they're like, oh, yeah.

然后跑去填写问卷。结果你的数据全被污染了。一百万条垃圾数据还不如一条优质数据有价值，对吧？大规模的错误数据本质上还是错误数据。

I'll go fill this in. And, like, now your data's all corrupted. It's like a million pieces of bad data is not as good as one piece of good data. Right? Like, the the the bad data at scale is still bad data.

情况会变得更糟。这些数据会产生负价值——因为你收集得越多就越有自信，但从统计学角度看这些垃圾数据根本不具备显著性。这不是经营企业的方式。如果你真想调查，先用谷歌搜索获取现有信息，然后找五个真人面对面交流。

It becomes worse. It decays. Like, it has negative value because you get more confidence in it as it but, like, it's not statistically significant bad data. That's not the way to run a business. If you're tempted to survey it, like, Google it, get what you can from Google, and then, like, sit down with, like, five people in person.

说实话我从未见过真正有用的问卷问题，很多人把他们的问卷发给我审阅。除非你完全不懂当地语言、确实无法流畅交流，或许问卷能作为最后手段——但我依然怀疑这样能获得有价值的洞察。我宁愿建议你用母语寻找典型客户交流学习，然后希望这些经验能推广适用。虽然也不理想，但至少信号质量好些。

I've honestly never seen a survey question that I thought was actually useful, and a lot of people have sent me their surveys to, like, have me look over them. Maybe if you were, like, a super non native speaker and you really felt like you could not have a conversation, fluidly, I could imagine potentially, like, the survey being a fallback, but I I'm still not sure that meaningful insights would come out of that. I would rather that you look for representative customers in your native languages, learn from them, and then hope that those learnings apply. I think it's still bad, but that would be, like, a better signal.

真的有

Is there really

问卷信号。

Survey signal.

调查真的毫无用处吗？是指那些定量数据吗？比如试图了解用户来自哪里、他们是否会编程之类的信息？

Is there really no use for surveys? Is that about, like, quantitative data, trying to figure out where your users are from, whether or not they know how to code, stuff like that?

当你拥有大量用户后，当然可以。我认为这是了解现有用户群体的好工具，因为你已经拥有一个独特的人群样本，其他人没有这些数据。这就是你的用户群体。所以绝对应该去了解自己的用户群体。但如果是为了验证想法或了解尚未获得的潜在客户，我持保留态度——当然，如果有人能证明我错了，我很乐意接受。

After you have a bunch of users, sure. I think it's a fine tool for understanding your existing user base because that has given you a population that is unique and no one else has data on it. It is now the population of your user base. So yes, by all means, learn about your own user base, sure. But to do it to validate an idea or to check learn about your customers who you don't yet have, I mean, I'm up for being proven wrong.

如果有人想给我看他们天才般的调查问卷，说它彻底解决了业务问题，我会在《妈妈测试》之外专门写文章介绍，因为这将是重大突破——如果你真能找到这种方法的话。但我从未见过这样的案例。不过对于现有客户，调查绝对有用。比如产品市场匹配度调查，看起来就很有效，背后有大量数据支持。

If someone wants to send me their genius survey that, like, totally fix their business, like, I'll I mean, I'll write in addition to the mom test, and I'll add it in there because, like, that would be a breakthrough if you figured out how to do it. But I've never seen one. But, yeah, for your own customers, absolutely. Like, there's the product market fit survey, which, like, seems to be effective. It's got a lot of data behind it.

我也从未那样使用过调查。我没有明确观点，但能想象它可能有用。不过我很清楚它们在客户探索阶段行不通。

I've never used them in that way either. I have no opinion, but I could see it being useful. But I know they don't work for customer discovery.

那么关于与现有客户沟通的话题，假设你有个运营良好的企业。用户正在使用你的产品，而你正在收集他们的反馈。我之前采访过Sarah Humm，她的公司Canny专门开发用户反馈工具。客户可以通过这个平台...

So on the subject of talking to your existing customers, let's say you have a business that's working pretty well. You have people using what you're building, and you're just asking them for feedback. I had Sarah Humm on the podcast. She has a company called Canny, and it's a tool that's explicitly for requesting user feedback. Your customers can go.

他们可以提出建议和功能需求，提交错误报告，还可以对其他人的功能请求进行投票。最终你会积累大量需求，需要决定如何处理它们。

They can make suggestions and feature requests. They can file bug reports. They can upvote each other's feature requests. And then you're sort of left with dozens and dozens of these requests. You have to figure out what to do with them.

把这些需求全部列入待办清单然后逐个解决显然不是正确做法。你需要分辨哪些是好的建议，哪些不是。该如何筛选这类客户反馈数据呢？

And it's probably not the right thing to just add them all to your to do list and just work through them one by one. You gotta figure out which ones are good, which ones are bad. How do you sort through this kind of customer data?

你只需要多问一两个问题。比如：你为什么需要这个功能？有了这个功能后，你能做哪些现在做不到的事？你会多久使用一次这个功能？在当前没有这个功能的情况下，你是怎么应对的？

You just need to ask one or two extra questions. It's like, why do you want this? What would this let you do that you can't do already? How often would you use this? How are you getting by now while this doesn't exist?

就是这类问题。这有点像围绕功能需求进行的客户需求挖掘。你需要再深入挖掘一层。我把它想象成金属探测器——功能需求就像是探测器发出的哔哔声。

That sort of thing. It's kind of like the the customer discovery around the feature request. You're trying to get one level deeper. I think of it a bit like a metal detector. Like, the feature request is the metal detector going beep, beep, beep.

那并不是真正的信息。它只是告诉你地下有东西，但你需要挖掘才能获得。所以对我来说，功能需求就是哔哔声，而后续提问才是你挖掘真实洞见的方式。通常情况是，客户有某个目标、问题或困扰，但他们想帮忙，所以会进一步把目标或困扰转化为功能需求。

That is not the information. That shows you that there's information below ground, but you need to dig to get it. So to me, the the feature request is the beep, beep, beep, but then the follow-up questions is how you dig underneath to get to the the real insight. And what normally happens is the customers have a goal or a problem or a frustration, but they wanna be helpful. So they take the extra jump and turn that goal or frustration into a feature request.

然后他们就把这个功能需求提交给你。不知道为什么，但人们就是这么做的。所以你需要逆向推演，从功能需求回溯到最初的目标或困扰。有时候他们是对的，你就直接按需求开发。但其他时候——毕竟你才是产品决策者——

And then they give you the feature request. I don't know why, but, like, that's what they do. And so then you'd need to reverse engineer that and go back from the feature request to the original goal or frustration. And then sometimes they're correct, you build exactly what they want. But other times, like, you know, you're the product visionary.

其他时候，你可以找到更好的方式来实现他们的目标或解决他们的困扰。

Other times, you can find a much better way to accomplish their goal or deal with their frustration.

所以即使收到功能需求，恰当的回应方式也是提出更多问题、深入挖掘。

So even the appropriate response to getting feature requests is to just ask more questions and and dig deeper.

如果可能的话。我觉得独立开发者在这方面应该没什么困难。你们大概都知道怎么处理功能需求，不太可能盲目实现收到的每个需求，应该已经有自己的处理方式了。

If possible. I feel like this is a place where indie hackers probably aren't struggling. Like, you it's like you kinda know what to do with feature requests. You're probably not just blindly building every feature request you get. Like, you're probably already dealing with them somehow.

我不确定自己在这方面能提供多大价值。但我建议每周找些理由和客户聊几次，比如一两次，不用太多，两三次也行，但要确保时间利用高效。因为从零开始组织会议——包括通勤、跟进、做笔记等等这些日程安排——会耗费大量时间。可能得花半天时间，而这些时间本可以用来编程之类的。

I'm not sure I have massive value to add on that one. But something I would suggest is to find some excuse to have a couple customer conversations each week, like one or two, not a huge amount, two or three maybe, and find a way to make that time efficient. So there's a huge time cost to, like, organizing a meeting from scratch, like commuting and following up and taking notes and all that stuff, the calendar dance. Huge time cost. It takes, like, half a day when you could have been programming and stuff.

要让这件事可持续，尤其是当你还是兼职状态时，关键在于利用每周与潜在客户或现有客户自然接触的机会，多问几个问题。支持工单和功能请求就非常适合这个目的。这样你不仅能扮演产品经理的角色，还能大致揣测功能请求背后的意图。你懂的，就是那种感觉。

So what you wanna do to make this sustainable, especially if you're still part time, is you wanna find moments in your week when you already have incidental contact with your potential customers or your current customers, and then use that opportunity to ask a couple more questions. And support tickets and feature requests work really well for this purpose. So it's not just that you can kind of like you're a product person. You can kind of intuit what the feature request means maybe. Like, you get it, whatever.

但如果能趁客户主动联系你时顺势展开对话，而不是你主动出击，就能以极低成本过渡到学习型对话。所以当我建议每周和客户聊几次时，有人会吓坏，觉得日程排不开。其实重点在于：寻找生活中现成的接触机会。

But like if you can use that when the customer has already reached out to you, instead of you reaching out to them, and use that as a cheap and easy way to transition into a little learning conversation, you can get a lot of value with a very low time cost. So sometimes when I say like, yeah, have a couple customer conversations each week, people are horrified. They're like, oh my gosh, my schedule. But it's like, no, no, no. Find the ones that are in your life.

要是有人说'我生活中根本接触不到客户'，我会觉得这很成问题。知道吗？比如我以前服务大学时，就不去普通酒吧，专门去教授们常去的大学酒吧。就这样自然接触到他们，慢慢认识几位教授后就会发现：只要和一位教授混熟，和其他人交流就容易多了。

And if people are like, there's zero customers in my life, I'm like, like, that's worrying. You know? Like, can you do something to put more customers in your life? Like, when I was serving universities, instead of going to drink at a regular bar, I would go to drink at the university bars and specifically the ones that the professors went to. And it was just like I was in contact with them and it's like I got to know a few of them and it's like, Oh, once your buddy's with one professor, it's easy to talk to all the others.

这意味着我每周会去一次酒吧，喝几杯啤酒，和五到十位教授或行政人员聊天。搞定！这周的客户调研就完成了。根本不需要大费周章。伦敦音乐初创公司Songkick每周五都会举办派对，邀请50位伦敦的活跃用户来办公室。

And it meant that I would go there once a week or something and I would go to the pub and I'd have a couple pints and I'd talk to five or 10 professors or school administrators or whatever. I was like, cool. That's my customer learning done for the week. Like, it doesn't need to be a huge task. Songkick, a London startup around live music, every Friday, they threw a party and invited 50 of their most active users who were based in London to come to their office.

他们请乐队表演，准备大量食物啤酒，让团队和客户自由社交。就是单纯地一起喝酒聊天，周五午后的休闲时光，不用工作。

They hired a band, they had a ton of food and beer, and they just had their team mingle with customers. It's like, hey, just hang out with them. Have some beers. Friday after lunch, hang out. No more work.

用户体验团队会借机把感兴趣的人拉到一边说：'想看看新版应用吗？我们会录视频，要不要来预览新功能？'大家通常都很乐意。看，多简单。

From that, the user experience team would be pulling people aside and being like, hey, If you're interested, it's like, we'd love to show you the upcoming version of the app. Like, we're gonna be video recording it. Do you wanna come see what's new? People like, yeah. So boom.

他们正在进行用户测试，开展与普通客户的对话。每个人都保持对用户的同理心。虽然那是个消费类应用，但企业同样适用。你可以组织商务午餐、聚会活动，或者参加别人的聚会。

They're getting their user tests. They're getting their casual customer conversations. Like, everyone staying, like, empathetic with their users. That was a consumer app, but you can do it with business too. You can do the business lunch, organize a meetup, go to meetups.

方法太多了。比如聚会活动——我提完这个就不再讲这些战术技巧了。所有人都把聚会活动搞砸了，他们带着纯粹的销售目的参加活动，开口就是'你好'。

Like, there's so many ways. Like, for example, meetups. I'll mention this one, and then I'll I'll be done with these little tactical tips. Everyone screws up meetups and events. They go to a meetup or event in pure sales mode, and they go, hello.

我是罗伯·菲茨帕特里克，一名创业者。我有一家公司，业务范围是... 您从事什么行业？

I am Rob Fitzpatrick. I am an entrepreneur. I have a business. This is what my business does. What do you do?

对方也抛出同样的推销话术，然后'很高兴认识你，听起来我们可以合作，交换名片约个会议吧'。之后双方互相忽视，因为这种对话对彼此毫无价值。

And the other person gets the same pitch, and it's like, great. Good to meet you. It sounds like we could do business together. Let's exchange business cards and set up a meeting. And then they both ignore each other because that's like a zero value conversation for both sides.

可那本可能是潜在客户啊！你却浪费了这个机会。浪费了整个对话就为了安排会议，这太荒谬了。你完全可以在对话中直接提出想问的问题。

Whereas if you but that was like a potential customer, right? And you just wasted that opportunity. You wasted a conversation to try to set up a meeting. That is insane. You could have just asked what you wanted to ask in the meeting during that conversation.

当我开始...好吧不是整个人生，是我的客户开发生涯彻底改变——当我参加聚会不再带名片时。我告诉自己这不是推销场合。有人过来自我介绍'我是做某某业务的'，

So my whole life changed when I started well, not my whole life, but my whole customer development life. When I started going to meetups, stopped bringing business cards, right? I'm like, this is not for pitching. And someone would come up to me and they'd be like, oh, blah blah blah. I do this.

他们递来名片，而我甚至不透露自己身份。我会直接说：'嘿，问个特别奇怪的问题...'

I do this. And they'd give me their business card. And I wouldn't even tell them who I was. I'd just be like, hey. Super weird question.

你们是怎么处理邮件安全的？然后，砰的一下，我就进入了探索性对话。他们就在那里等着聊天，对吧？

How do you guys deal with email security? And, like, boom. I'm in a discovery conversation. Like, they're there to chat. Right?

他们喜欢这样，因为你是第一个没有直接推销的人。之后如果发现他们确实相关，你们已经进行了真正的对话，建立了关系，这时安排会议就很容易了，因为你们已经知道彼此是相关且有价值的。所以，埃迪，别再推销了。推销应该永远是你最后做的事，而不是第一件。

And they love it because you're the first person who hasn't just tried to pitch them. And then after that, if it turns out they are relevant, you've actually had a real conversation, you've got a relationship started, then it's easy to have the meeting because you already know you're relevant and valuable to each other. So, like, if I say, Eddie, just stop pitching. Like, pitching should always be the last thing you do, never the first thing you do.

这种情况在邮件里会是什么样子？我收到很多人发邮件说，嘿，科特兰，这是我正在做的项目，能听听你的意见吗？我就觉得，这听起来要花很多时间啊。

How would this look over email? Because I get a lot of emails from people who are like, hey, Cortland. Here's what I'm building. Can I get your opinion? And I'm like, well, that sounds like a lot of time.

另一方面，有时候有人会说，嘿，我们能快速吃个午饭或开个会吗？我就想，这看起来要花更多时间。

And on the flip side, sometimes some people will be like, you know, hey. Can we get, like, a quick lunch or a meeting? I'm like, well, that seems like even more time.

什么是

What's the

如果你想验证自己的想法，通过邮件征求他人反馈或开启这类客户对话的最佳方式是什么？

best way to sort of solicit someone's feedback or have start one of these customer conversations over email if you're trying to validate your idea?

通过邮件做这件事超级难。书里有个章节，好像是第七章，讲的是如何争取这些会议。我把它分为冷接触和暖接触，比如入站和出站。里面有一堆关于如何冷接触别人的战术建议，但效率非常低。对吧？

It's super hard over email. There's a section in the book, I think it's chapter seven, where it's it's like, how do you get these meetings? And it's like, I kind of divide it into the cold approaches and the warm approaches, like inbound and outbound, let's say. There's a bunch of tactical suggestions for how to like cold approach people, but it's deeply inefficient. Right?

你得发邮件给大约100个人才能换来一次有价值的对话，这简直是浪费时间。讽刺的是，人们发邮件本以为是更高效的方式。结果发了100封邮件，被拒绝99次，整个人都崩溃了。

You have to email, like, a 100 people to get one good conversation, and that's a huge waste of your time. And it's ironic because the whole reason people do the emails is because they think it's gonna be more efficient. And then they've sent a 100 emails. They've been rejected 99 times. They're sad.

他们抑郁消沉，痛哭流涕，连编程的力气都没了。你能想象那种画面——泪水模糊了视线，手指在键盘上打滑。连续遭遇这么多次拒绝实在太残酷了。

They're depressed. They're crying. Like, they got no energy left to program. They're like, you know, their tear stained fingers are slipping on the keyboard. It's, like, brutal to be rejected that many times in a row.

即便理性上明白这些拒绝无关紧要，但内心还是会不断自我怀疑。我发现当人们思考该联系谁时，总是根据潜在价值、盈利空间或重要性来排序联系人——这完全错了。正确的做法应该是按友好程度和可接触性排序，从最友善的人开始联系。

It's like, even if you rationally know it doesn't matter, it's still, like it it gnaws at your soul. And so, like, I would much rather like, when I talk to people, it's like they're like, who do I talk to? And they they always rank their leads by, like, potential or profitability or or how important they are. And I think that's the wrong way to do it. I think what you should do is you should rank your leads by friendliness and ease of contact, and then start with the friendliest ones first.

你要通过社交网络找到能代表客户的人选。比如父亲的前同事、你的大学校友或前公司同事。仔细想想总能找到这样的人——你们有共同话题，可以借口喝咖啡叙旧或问候。就从这些愿意无条件与你闲聊的友善人士开始。

And you have to know someone through your extended network who's representative of a customer. Right? Someone your dad used to work with, someone who used to go to the same university as you, someone who used to work at the same company as you. If you start thinking about it, you can you can start to find these people you have some conversation with, some excuse to get a coffee or catch up or say hello. And you start with those friendly people who will talk to you for no reason at all.

就像摘苹果时，疯子才会非要去够树顶的果子。你应该先摘触手可及的苹果，再逐步往上。同理，先从容易接触的潜在客户入手。

And as you start answering the obvious questions, it's like the low hanging Like, it would be crazy to go to an apple tree and be like, I sure want an apple. I'm gonna get the one at the top first. You, like, start with the apples you can reach, and then you work your way up. Right? And so, like, start with the easy leads.

别担心规模问题。经过五次对话后，你的认知会比零对话时深入得多。有些人听完会说：‘哇，你这么真诚，是真的想改善我们行业啊！我认识些人可能感兴趣。’人脉网络自然就拓展开了。我看到太多人过度纠结对话规模，其实根本不需要那么多。

Don't worry about the scalability because after five conversations, you're gonna know a lot, a lot more than you knew at zero conversations. And some of those people you talk to will be like, woah, like, you're really authentic, you're trying to improve my work and my industry. Like, yeah, I know some more people who'd be into this. And it starts branching out from there. So I see people worry way too much about scaling their conversations, but, like, you don't need that many.

一旦启动，机会自然越来越多。所以先从简单的开始，看看效果如何。最糟糕的做法就是把最重要的对话放在开头——千万别学那些在人家公司大厅蹲守二十天的极端案例。

And once you get started, more become available. So start with the easy ones, see what happens. And the last thing you wanna do is start with your most important conversation. Do one of these crazy things. Like, there's these stories of, like, sitting in some company's lobby for twenty days until they talk to you.

真是浪费时间。这就是你的第一次对话？你肯定会搞砸的。你总想先烧毁那些友好的桥梁，因为它们更防火。友好的桥梁是烧不毁的。

Like, what a waste of time. And that's your first conversation? You're definitely gonna screw it up. Like, you wanna burn your friendly bridges first because they're more fireproof. Like, friendly bridges don't burn.

对吧？那就从这开始吧。

Right? So start with this.

有没有某个时刻你会停止与客户交谈？我知道你说过每周仍会进行两三次客户对话。如果你觉得已经学到了需要的东西呢？你的业务进展顺利，正在增长。

Is there ever a point where you you stop talking to customers? I know you said you're still doing two or three customer conversations a week. What if you feel like you've learned what you need to know? Your business is going well. It's growing.

你还应该留出时间与客户交谈吗？如果是的话，你该问他们些什么呢？

Should you still set aside time to talk to customers? And if so, what should you even be asking them about?

我喜欢这样。知道吗？但终极商业技巧之一就是选择你愿意相处的客户。比如我喜欢和作家们相处，现在我正在为作家开发软件。这很有趣。

I like it. You know? But one of the the ultimate business hack is to choose customers who you like hanging out with. Like, I like hanging out with authors, and now I'm building software for authors. And it's like, well, that's fun.

我喜欢和人们讨论他们的书，这让我兴奋。我很多朋友喜欢写书，我觉得他们很有趣。所以如果你能做到这点，这就是个生活小技巧。这感觉不像工作。

I love talking to people about their books. It excites me. So, like, a lot of my friends like writing books, and I find them interesting. So, like, if you can do that, that's a a little life hack. It doesn't feel like such work.

但如果做不到，有时你会陷入深度困境，比如已经获得了所有验证、证据和学习成果，现在只需要攻克这个技术难题。比如我需要3D渲染器，需要硬件性能提升。这事必须完成。

But, like, if you can't do that, like, there's times where you get into a deep slog where it's like, okay. Like, I've gained all the validation and all the evidence and all the learning I can, and I just need to, like, crack this hard technical problem. Like, I need the three d renderer. I need whatever the hardware to be better. Like, it just has to happen.

你要投入进去，大概六个月或十二个月，然后把它完成。还有些内容营销之类的事。你会觉得，好吧，这个业务要通过邮件列表和博客来增长。你不需要每天都盯着数据看，甚至每周都不需要。

And you go into the tank for, like, six months or twelve months, and you just, like, get it done. There's also some stuff like content marketing. You're like, okay. This business is gonna grow via mailing list and blog. You don't want to be looking at your metrics every day or even every week.

你要下定决心，至少坚持这个策略三个月。全力以赴，然后再重新评估。因为一周的内容营销和零周的内容营销效果差不多，对吧？你需要投入足够的资源，才能让它发挥作用。

You wanna be like, I'm gonna commit to this strategy for at least three months. I'm gonna hit it hard, and then I'm gonna reevaluate. Because, like, one week's worth of content marketing is as good as zero weeks worth of content marketing. Right? You need to put enough wood behind that arrow, for it to do anything.

那些艰难时期，你只需坚持计划，过多的数据反而可能害了你，因为它们会让你动摇，而你需要做的是执行计划并看到结果。但当你达到下一个平台期后，你会环顾四周，想要重新与客户互动。如果客户习惯已经荒废太久，重建起来会非常困难。你知道，会变得不同...我也不确定。这只是一种不同的工作方式，所以我喜欢保持新鲜感。

Those slogs, you just commit to the plan, and they're more data can hurt you because it can sway you when what you need to be doing is following through with your plan and seeing it to its conclusion. But then you reach the next plateau, and then you look around, and then you want to reengage with customers. It's very hard to rebuild, like, the customer habit if you've let it slide for too long. You know, you get into different I don't know. It's just a different way of working, so I like to keep it fresh.

我只是觉得这是我每周工作的一部分，对吧？就是和几个客户保持联系。这没什么大不了的。就像发几封邮件说声'嘿'。

I just think it's, like, part of my weekly job. Right? It's, like, stay in contact with a couple customers. It's like not that big of a deal. It's like email a couple be like, hey.

最近怎么样？就是来问候一下。别给上千人发自动邮件。就手动给几个人发邮件，比如'嘿'。

How's it going? Just checking in on you. Don't like send an automated email to a thousand of them. Just like hand email a few of them. Like, hey.

就是来问候下。或者'嘿，我看到你提交了支持工单'，或者'嘿，谢谢你的功能请求'，再或者'嘿'。

Just checking in. Or like, hey. I saw you send a support ticket. Or like, hey. Thanks for your feature request or, hey.

我看到你在亚马逊上写了评论。随便啦...我也不知道。我的想法是：别把事情搞得那么难。如果你觉得痛苦又困难，那就别强迫自己做难事，开始想办法让它变得更容易、更轻松些。

I saw you made an Amazon review. What whatever. I don't know. Stop making it so hard would be my thought. Like, if you feel like it's miserable and hard, then, like, stop making yourself do the hard thing and start finding a way to make it easier and less miserable.

不过，是的，如果你能养成这个习惯，对你的生意确实大有裨益。

But, yeah, it's really good for your business if you can get into that habit.

是啊。你把一切都说得那么轻松愉快，但我想其实不必搞得那么艰难复杂。你

Yeah. You're making everything sound so easy and pleasant, but I guess it doesn't have to be hard or difficult. You

可以只是改变不同的变量。你看，大家都用困难的方式，逼自己更努力更勇敢，但我觉得这真的很蠢。不如坦然接受自己又懒又怂，然后把事情简化到无论如何都能完成的程度——这就是我的人生策略。无论是约会、做生意、客户对话，我从不强迫自己变得更勇敢，

can It just it's changing a different variable. Like, everyone does it the hard way and tries to make themselves work harder and be braver, but I think that's really stupid. It's like better to, like, accept that you are lazy and cowardly and then make it easy enough so that you can do it anyway. Like, that's my whole strategy with life. Like, with dating, with business, with customer conversations, with every like, I'm not gonna try to make myself more brave.

而是努力让情境变得更简单，降低到我的舒适区。我们得

I'm gonna try to make the situation more easy, bringing it down to my level. We're gonna have

专门做一期节目来听你传授约会建议了，罗伯。

to have another episode all about you giving dating advice, Rob.

我其实写过这么一本书，连测试读者都找好了，改到第五稿时却全部删掉了。我当时觉得太羞耻不敢出版。我确实有见解，但不想公之于众。

I wrote that book once, but I I I had beta readers and everything. It was like a fifth draft and I just deleted the whole thing. I was like, I'm I'm too ashamed to publish this. I have opinions, but I do not wanna release them to the world.

听着罗伯，这期节目你已经分享了很多精彩观点和实用建议，还写过整本相关著作《妈妈测试》。感觉我们才触及皮毛，书里全是关于如何与客户沟通、该问什么问题、以及应对各种情境的干货。

Well, listen, Rob. You shared a lot of great opinions, a lot of good advice so far in this episode, and you've written an entire book about this too. It's called The Mom Test. I feel like we barely scratched the surface. There's so much in there about how to talk to your customers, what questions to ask, and which situations.

我推荐大家都去买这本书。它非常简短，我大概只花了两小时就读完了，大概也就120页左右。

I recommend everybody go out and buy it. It's super short. It took me, like, two hours to read it. It's only, like, a 120 pages or something.

对吧？可能听完这段对话的时间就够读完它了。

Right? Probably read it in the time it takes to listen to this.

没错。听众中有很多初次创业者或想成为创业者的人。你创办过许多公司，在客户对话和销售方面经验丰富。

Yeah. You probably could. The audience listening to this is is full of first time founders and people who want to become founders. You started numerous companies. You've done so much around customer conversations and sales.

对于那些刚起步的ND黑客们，你有什么建议要留给他们？

What tips would you leave them with if they're if they're just getting started as ND hackers?

我会分享一个关于客户对话的建议，再给一个关于创业的通用建议。关于客户对话，要把它当作一门手艺或实操技能，就像滑板或陶艺，要准备好摔几次跤。它不像科学或数学，你可以从书本上了解框架和方法，但最终还是需要实践。过程中难免会有尴尬和失误，你懂的。

I'll give one about customer conversations and then one about startups in general. So about customer conversations, think of it like a craft or a hands on skill, like skateboarding or pottery, and be willing to fall on your ass a few times. It's not like science or math. You can read it in the book and you'll get the framework and you'll know what you're trying to try, but you still gotta go practice. And you're gonna have some embarrassing moments and some whoopsies and you know?

但你会越来越擅长道歉。只要你尊重他人时间，保持真诚，大家都会喜欢创业者。毕竟你是在试图理解他们生活中最糟糕的部分并改善它，这是相当崇高的目标。

But you get good at saying sorry. And if you're respectful of people's time and you're, like, authentic and like, everyone loves an entrepreneur. Right? So you get a lot of benefit of the doubt because what you're trying to do is understand the worst part of their life and make it less bad. That's, like, a pretty noble goal.

我知道存在例外，有些人可能想骗钱、利用赌瘾或卖假药，确实存在邪恶的商业。但假设你是个用心做好产品的创始人，你很可能真的想帮助人们改善生活——这很酷。

And I know there's exceptions. You might be trying to screw them out of money or abuse their gambling addictions or sell them fake drugs. There's, like, some evil businesses. But assuming you're, like, a good founder making a meaningful business, like, you you're probably trying to actually help people and build something that's good for their life. So that's cool.

人们就是这样。它会给你很多对你错误的宽容。天啊，我在会议上说过那么多本应很冒犯的蠢话，而人们只是笑笑。他们甚至会有人对我说，听着，我知道你想在这里做什么。

People like that. It gives you a lot of, forgiveness for your mistakes. Man, I've I've said such dumb things in meetings that should have been so offensive, and people just laugh. They're like I've even had people be like, look. I know what you're trying to do here.

你做错了。

You're doing it wrong.

让我来

Let me

帮你一把。比如，让我告诉你这是怎么运作的。然后情况就从我在努力推销会议，变成了他们在指导我应该如何推销会议。如果你在努力做好工作，人们对创业者真的非常善良。所以，是的，要愿意犯错。

help you out. Like, let me tell you how this works. And they just like it switches from a me trying to sell the meeting to a them coaching me about how I should be trying to sell the meeting. People are really kind hearted to entrepreneurs if you're trying to do good work. So yeah, be willing to make your mistakes.

就像滑板一样，你会跌倒几次，但你要尝试并找到方法让它变得足够简单。你选择了容易摘到的果实和友好的初次接触，这样跌倒就不会太痛苦。你希望能在安全的环境中犯早期的错误，不会让你痛苦或害怕。然后随着你越来越自信，你会意识到，哦，我准备好了进入更大的局面，接触陌生人等等。总的来说，对于商业和初创公司，我认为弄清楚你从商业中想要什么，关于你自己的生活和你想过的生活类型是有帮助的，因为硅谷的很多做法是你卖掉公司，然后生活才开始。

It's like skateboarding, you're going to fall over a bit, but you know, give it a try and find ways where you've made it easy enough. You've chosen the low hanging fruit and the friendly first contacts such that falling over isn't overly painful. You want to be able to make your early mistakes in a safe environment where it doesn't make you miserable or terrified. And then as you get more confident, you realize like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm ready to to get into bigger situations now, approach strangers and whatever. Then in general, for for business and for startups, I think it's helpful to figure out what you want from the business in terms of your own life and the sort of life you wanna lead because a lot of the Silicon Valley approach is you sell your company and then life begins.

而对于独立开发者来说，甚至我的意思是，那种叙事，我尝试为我的第一家公司那样做。我们经历了YC，筹集了一大笔钱，有了好客户，我们拼命工作了四年。我们很痛苦。我们想，但这将是值得的，因为我们将得到我们的私人岛屿和直升机。然后我们还是失败了。

Whereas for the indie hackers and even I mean, that narrative though, I tried to do that for my first company. We went through YC, we raised a bunch of money, we had good customers, we worked our butts off for four years. We were miserable. We were like, But it's going to be worth it because we're going to get our private island and our helicopter. And then we failed anyway.

突然间，那牺牲的四年感觉并不好。只有在你成功时才会感觉好。所以，从那以后我试着想，好吧，我想要什么样的日常生活？比如，我想花时间做什么活动？举个例子，我讨厌营销。

And suddenly that sacrificed four years didn't feel so good. It only feels good if you succeed. So like, And whereas since then I've tried to be like, okay, well, what's my day to day life that I want? Like, what are the activities I want to spend my time doing? So for example, I hate marketing.

因此我不选择依赖营销的业务。我选择那些能让我与喜欢的客户交谈、共处并花时间打造无需庞大支持团队的小巧产品的业务。这感觉太棒了——现在我根本不需要为工作而工作，在家或咖啡馆就能完成。

So I don't choose businesses that rely on marketing. I choose businesses that allow me to talk to customers I like and hang out with them and spend time with them build cool little products that don't need a big support team. And it's like, oh, that's great. And so now I really and like nothing I need to show up to work for. Like, can do it from my home or do it from a cafe.

你完全可以做出这些选择。我看到太多人只关注如何退出，却很少思考：每天我要花多少时间做喜欢的事而非讨厌的事？我能否与欣赏的人共事而非 cynical 的对象？对我而言，这种思维转变彻底改变了选择项目的方式，从此一切都变得更有趣也更成功。总之，这很令人兴奋。

Like, you can make those choices. And I I think I see way too many people focused on the exit and not enough focused on, like, how many hours per day am I gonna be spending on the activities I like versus the ones I don't like? And will I get to hang out with people I like and admire or people I'm cynical about? For me, that's been a huge, night and day shift in the way I chose my ideas, and everything's been a lot more fun and a lot more successful since, I started approaching it that way. But, anyway, it's exciting.

祝大家好运！我的邮箱和所有信息都在robfits.com上，还有书籍链接。我是Rob Fits，也在Indie Hackers社区，随时欢迎你们提问。

I wish you guys luck, and you can find all my email and everything at robfits.com and links to the book. I'm Rob at rob fits, and I'm on Indie Hackers and always happy to answer questions about this stuff if you got any.

Rob，非常感谢你参加节目。

Rob, thanks so much for coming on the show.

这是我的荣幸。谢谢你邀请我，Cortland。

It's been my great pleasure. Thank you for having me, Cortland.

听众朋友们，如果喜欢本期节目，希望你们能联系告诉我。我的Twitter账号是csallen（拼写c s a l l e n）。欢迎随时发推文给我反馈意见。

Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you reached out to me and let me know. I am at c s allen on Twitter. That's c s a l l e n. Feel free to just send me a tweet. Give me your feedback.

分享你的想法，推荐节目嘉宾人选。我计划每月除了常规的三场访谈外，还会穿插几期像这样的教育类内容，或许还有些辩论和讨论。重申一次，Twitter账号是csallen。非常感谢收听，我们下期再见。

Tell me your thoughts. Send me some suggestions as to who I should have on the show. I'm trying to mix it up and do a few more educational episodes like this one every month in addition to, of course, three or so interviews every month and maybe some debates, some discussions. So again, that's at c s allen Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next time.