I'm starting to be reticent to talk to random people about my startup. Every time I mention it, there's an hour long conversation in which people that are not my intended market try to prove to me that my market doesn't exist, that my product is crap. They might or might not be right, I'm not sure yet; but it's a futile exercise because neither I can change their minds nor can they change mine.
This used to depress me a lot; now not so much. I guess my skin is getting thicker, but at an incredible low speed. For those suffering in this way, you can get stronger, but it's so slow you might not notice it.
Recently, during one of these conversations, someone said: "Don't let us discourage you, we are just criticizing you because it makes us feel smart". It's been a few days and I'm still thinking about it. I'm thinking about my l'esprit de l'escalier response to it: "Yeah, everybody seems to want to put people down in this country, instead of finding a way to lift those around them". But I'm also thinking about what a great level of introspection that person had to spontaneously come up with that. I admire that.
It still hurts but I understand the exercise of being challenged by knowledgeable people, by your potential customer, even by potential investors. I'm not finding the value in these conversations with random strangers. It seems they always get combative because they are trying to put me down and I don't go down easily.
I feel that as soon as I have enough revenue for it to be proof of my market, I'll get horribly sarcastic: "Oh... you are right, this makes no sense. I guess I'll close down, return the money to my customers and go flip burgers in McDonald's.". Or maybe, once I'm not searching for potential customers constantly everywhere, I'll lie about what I do.
Does this happen to you? How do you deal with it?
You know... I went to a ruby meetup last night... and when it came to the conversation of what I do I just said I'm "doing my own thing" and they dig deeper "what does that mean?" I just replied "I'm still trying to figure that out". After reading the Mom Test and Lean B2B I realize conversations about a potential product with anyone who is outside your target market a complete waste of time and likely to be dangerous. So, yeah I just decided not to have that convo in that instance.
Thanks for sharing James. I might start doing that too.
It seems like you've succesfully saved yourself some positive energy that you can now invest elsewhere.
PS the Mom Test is fantastic.
what do you mean by dangerous? do you psychologically or the potential to steal your idea
Read The Mom Test and you'll know exactly what I mean by dangerous. Basically people are predisposed to lie to you and give you false/low quality/misleading feedback to protect your ego. And because confirmation bias is a thing we tend to believe them. It's bad and you want to avoid it. There is a way to get high quality feedback out of people and sharing your idea with random strangers is not it.
Thank you. I'll check it out.
This is people being people. Either they give too positive feedback because they don't want to hurt your feelings or just want to be supportive, or they are super critical because they want to make sure you stay grounded or don't make an expensive mistake.
It happens with other entrepreneurs and founders too. It's very difficult to give valuable input about a market you haven't extensively researched. The exception being giving feedback on general problems like landing page design, using a certain marketing model.
You are probably right that the only feedback that truly matters is that which taps into the true needs and wants of the market. Getting to it is one of the most crucial skills an entrepreneur can have. Far more important than knowing how to code or do design.
Being on my third startup, fourth if you count one I joined later, I wholeheartedly agree.
I recognise this, from both sides of a discussion.
I always try to do two things when somebody tells me about their idea/company:
I might say: "I don't know. You've been thinking about this for months and I've thought about this for 5 seconds (or 1 hour). You probably know better than me. Tell me more."
Yup. I try to do the same thing.
i posted about my dating site for kanye west fans on IH (i love IH)
people said i was going to get sued and that i was wasting my time.
i didn't listen to them. My site went viral and I'm now speaking to the CFO of YEEZY.
The more people call me an idiot the better I seem to do!
Hahaha. I love it. I never managed to even think of the quirky product like that. I think those are fads, short lived, but that doesn't mean they can't make money, or jump-start a career. You seem to be doing well. Kudos to you :)
yeah this seems really normal to me, i'd avoid these convos, too noisy. i think most people don't put enough serious thought in before jumping into either positive or negative feedback. and like other commenters mentioned, seems like they're typically overly supportive or overly critical for some reason or other. don't let it get you down. it maybe good to look at best practices in gleaning the type of feedback you're looking for. In-market/problem centric with well thought-out Q's should go much better.
I guess I'm on the opposite side: I love talking to people outside the market.
You shouldn't take any of this criticism personally. From my experience, most people are just trying to help you. They aren't trying to tell you "you're working on the wrong thing", they're trying to give you a different perspective: "did you think about this potential issue?". However, most people aren't particularly great with words, and you're likely so heavily invested in your business that you can't help but hear pointed jabs.
It can never hurt to listen to people. You don't have to follow along with everything they tell you, but different perspectives are always a good thing. If anything, you can always learn who your market isn't, which is useful!
I agree about not taking the criticism personally, I disagree with people trying to help. I think most of us enjoy finding fault, ranting, playing devil's advocate, gossiping. It's very natural. When someone comes to me with an idea or project I need to fight my own automatic responses to do that.
For example, in the same situation from which that quote came from, I mentioned that my product might be useful for sales people (among many other potential users). Someone said that it probably isn't and had a good argument about it. I acknowledged the argument, explained that sales people are not my main market and that it's just an idea. For the next 10 minutes people couldn't stop talking about how it wouldn't work for sales people. I kept saying: "Yup, you are right, it might not work" over and over.
It rings a bell of a psychological principle in which if you give someone extra data that is not completely positive, their perception becomes more negative. I can't remember the details right now.
When you say you love to people outside the market for your product, do you mean you enjoy telling them about your product and talking to them about it?
All of these things (finding fault, ranting, playing devil's advocate, gossiping) are people trying to help you. You don't see it that way, but you should.
This is on you, not them. They are continuing a conversation that you started. They are discussing what would and would not work, and you're trying to shut it down immediately after bringing it up. Why not listen to the people you're talking to? Are you just trying to move through an elevator pitch?
It's hard to hear people talk negatively about your ideas. It hurts, even. We avoid it if possible. You tried to avoid it! You have to embrace negative criticism, even if you think it's wrong, and not useful. It's all useful, in some sort of way.
Even if they tell you what doesn't work, all of that information is something you can work with to figure out something that does work. If you need to pivot, now you can find a direction.
I strongly disagree.
Literally the title of this post is a quote from my interlocutor admitting that her criticism of my product was a way for her to feel better. She didn't say "we are just criticizing you to help you improve your product.", she said "we are criticizing you because it makes us feel smarter".
She was trying to be nice to you and make a flippant, funny comment. You probably looked visibly upset.
Yup, all of that is possible.
Don't dismiss those that want to put you down so quickly. Apply the 5 why's to go deeper and discover their flaws or, more importantly, your flaws. Maybe you are embuing a lot of sentiment that does not exist. Written communication is hard. Try to extract the information to improve and forget the rest.
I didn't think of applying the 5-whys to this. I'm curious about it, do you have examples of you doing this that you can share with us?
BTW, I'm referring to face to face communication, not written one, in this article.
"Don't let us discourage you, we are just criticizing you because it makes us feel smart"
Damn, this quote really explains A LOT of what is happening in our live.
Oh, sorry to read you have this experience. I've never really got this kind of feedback ever, apart from the odd “doesn't that already exist”. “Yes, it does”.
I don't know in what stage you are, but if you are not profitable yet: don't go into any debate—cut them off. Best for you both!
If you are profitable: say so. Say you make enough to live comfortably, or whatever the case is for you.
Really? Never got it? Are you only hanging out with a select group of supporting people? May I ask whereabouts are you based? I wonder if there's a big difference in how people behave in this regard from place to place.
Not based at one single place. I meet new people every day, from all walks of life.
Granted I don't talk work-stuff all too much, nor do I constantly pitch or "network". Only specific topics with known and new people.
I'm not networking or pitching either and I only talk about my startup when someone asks.
Yes, it does. I suggest to look at any feedback objectively (no emotions), don't assume malice or anything. People just like to feel their opinion is worth something.
You know the most about your market so don't take others' advice too personally, however well intentioned it might be. Friends tend to be the worst, unless their name is Jeff Bezos or Travis Kalanick (ok, maybe just Jeff).
However, every feedback has some value, so don't disregard it completely! It's a lonely journey, especially in the beginning.
Source: I heard just about every reason why it's impossible to build a better Watu and I am sure you'd disagree as well haha.
Hola Pablo!
I know what you feel. Sometimes people feel powerful and smart criticising your project.
As @from_30_to_greatness says, read The Mom Test. You should only talk to your potential market and LISTEN to their life (habits, alternatives, routines, etc) and NOT mention your idea. This book has been a great tool for me.
I saw Dashman website. Looks good but I would improve the problem mentioned at the video (be more specific to a certain role). For example: "You are the responsible for the marketing at your company but have to visit hundreds of websites to see your results. With Dashman, you can analyze your Google Analytics, email marketing, Twitter and Facebook results in one single page. Reduce 90% of your time spent on reports and analysis. Sign up now!"
Just my feedback.
Keep it up man!
Thank you for the feedback. One of the reasons the landing page is of Dashman is very generic is that it is quite a generic product (almost as generic as a browser). The other one is that who I thought was going to be my main customer turned out not to be.
I thought entrepreneurs cared about having screens displaying all their data, their google analytics, their support requests, the sales, etc. This is what I do and I thought all other entrepreneurs were like me and I was wrong.
I've got a lot of interest in Dashman from education, government, big enterprises, some big manufacturers, etc. As the patterns start to emerge I'll start to make more targeted landing pages. Education is probably going to be the first one.
I think you've stumbled on a great market J. Pablo - Folks who want to feel smart ;-)
Hahaha. That market is probably tapped to death. I mean, 90% of Hollywood movies makes me feel like Einstein.
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