Customer Conversation Access

Use this skill to help teams get into useful customer conversations without turning every interaction into a formal interview or sales pitch. The best access path depends on where the target segment already spends time and who can credibly introduce the team.

Source Traceability

Primary source: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, especially chapters 4, 6, and 7. Guidance is paraphrased for this MIT repo; authoring notes used converted EPUB lines 2176-2362 and 2791-3610.

Access Paths

Path	Use When	Watch For
Warm intros	Someone credible can introduce the team	Make the ask easy and specific
Existing communities	Customers gather in events, forums, meetups, Slack, Discord, or associations	Participate before extracting value
Casual chats	The context naturally touches the problem	Keep the idea out until needed
Teaching or office hours	The team has a useful point of view	Do not disguise a sales pitch as education
Landing-page replies	People opted into the topic	Follow up personally, not only with metrics
Advisors	Industry structure is unclear	Advisors should create learning, not just status

Meeting Framing

When a formal ask is required, include:

1. Vision: the broad problem or better world.
2. Stage: where the team is now.
3. Weakness: what the team does not understand yet.
4. Pedestal: why this person can help.
5. Ask: the specific, easy-to-forward conversation request.

Keep the framing short. Do not ask for opinions on the idea. Ask for help understanding a domain, problem, workflow, or decision process. Prefer a short, specific conversation over a broad "pick your brain" request.

Output Format

# Customer Conversation Access Plan

## Segment
[Who we need to talk to.]

## Best Access Paths
| Path | Why It Fits | First Action | Risk |
|------|-------------|--------------|------|

## Warm Intro Or Meeting Ask
- Vision:
- Stage:
- Weakness:
- Why them:
- Ask:

## Follow-Up
- Target number of conversations:
- Next source if this fails:
- What to track:

Workflow

Use workflows/frame-warm-intro.md when drafting an intro request, meeting request, or conversation opener.

Quality Bar

• Do not default to cold outreach if a warmer path is plausible.
• Do not hide a sales pitch inside a request for advice.
• Do not ask for a formal meeting when a casual conversation would learn enough.
• Do not measure access only by response rate. The goal is useful conversations with the right people.