diff --git a/src/axolotl/models/mamba/__init__.py b/src/axolotl/models/mamba/__init__.py
index 247c1d184b..6bea5b6b13 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/models/mamba/__init__.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/models/mamba/__init__.py
@@ -2,6 +2,16 @@
 Modeling module for Mamba models
 """
 
+import importlib
+
+
+def check_mamba_ssm_installed():
+    mamba_ssm_spec = importlib.util.find_spec("mamba_ssm")
+    if mamba_ssm_spec is None:
+        raise ImportError(
+            "MambaLMHeadModel requires mamba_ssm. Please install it with `pip install -e .[mamba-ssm,flash-attn]`"
+        )
+
 
 def fix_mamba_attn_for_loss():
     from mamba_ssm.models import mixer_seq_simple
@@ -10,3 +20,6 @@ def fix_mamba_attn_for_loss():
 
     mixer_seq_simple.MambaLMHeadModel = MambaLMHeadModelFixed
     return mixer_seq_simple.MambaLMHeadModel  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+
+
+check_mamba_ssm_installed()