GoInstant whiteboard using whiteboard paintSteak and egg sandwichEarly bright moonUnder the covers with a mooseBudding photographerBuilding a snow wallHe upgraded to a bigger shirt stuffed with more stuff Serious smashing going on


You Suck! And How to Handle Other Negative Feedback

Negative feedback hurts. It’s easy to take personally and get offended. It’s easy to dismiss too. But negative feedback is a lot better than no feedback at all. The worst thing for a startup -at any stage- is crickets.

…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…

Ugh. Silence is the ultimate form of “you suck” feedback. Better that people take the time to tell you to your face. And in many cases, negative feedback can be more valuable than positive feedback, which is often given because people want to be nice. As a founder, you don’t need nice, you need honest and meaningful. So customers that tell you that you suck could be your most valuable ones ever. And just because they’re negative, doesn’t mean they won’t help you along the way, and ultimately buy from you.

When receiving negative (or positive) feedback, it’s important to understand the context. For example, feedback at any point in time, without any sense of historical feedback, is a very small data point. You shouldn’t ignore it, but keep it in perspective.

You need to understand the “why” behind feedback as much as possible. So don’t be scared to ask for more information from people that have just told you that you suck. Oftentimes they’re quite willing to speak their mind further. You need to understand your customers as much as possible. It may be that you’re focused on the wrong target market. It may be that you released really early, and find out that with a bit more work on the product, you can go back to those same people and they’re willing to try again. Sure it’d be nice if those people loved your product right away, but the above scenario is still a good one: you received honest (bad) feedback, you figured out what to do, you’ve determined it’s worth doing (because it impacts a broader, valuable market), and you still have a chance of making a sale down the road.

Negative feedback is discouraging. But you have to remember that it’s part of the learning process. It doesn’t feel like that all the time, but if you’re digging into the feedback, understanding the context, and using the feedback to make decisions, it’s going to help steer you in the right direction.

Silence is the worst. Negative feedback is just part of the process. You’ll need thick skin (every startup founder needs thick skin and a healthy dose of delusion). Try your best to avoid the crazy up and down roller coaster that comes with good and bad feedback. Focus on learning. Focus on extracting the value from feedback, and moving forward.

One Customer Doesn’t Make a Market

These days, most entrepreneurs I talk to understand the importance of speaking with customers before building a full-blown product. They’re getting out of the building. And that’s great. A few years ago it wasn’t like that at all.

But unfortunately, I often speak with entrepreneurs that have only talked to one or two customers. That’s not nearly enough. The danger in speaking with too few customers is that you bet too much on too little data. If the first customer you speak to loves your idea and you put blinders on to go build the solution, you haven’t eliminated any real risk. You’ve just found one potential customer. Chances are you don’t even understand the problem well enough to solve it.

A customer that says, “That sounds cool,” or “That would be really useful,” is a lot different than one who says, “I’ve tried solving that problem in a few ways, and looked at five different solutions, none of which really addresses my problem.”

You need to find out if the customers you’re speaking to have ever tried to solve the problem on their own and/or if they’ve gone out and looked at other solutions. If they haven’t done that, there’s a very good chance the problem isn’t big or painful enough. Ask them straight up, “How have you tried to solve this problem before?” Don’t be shy about it.

Consulting companies that want to convert themselves into product companies run the risk of building a product off too few customers. They get hired to build something, and assume there are no alternative solutions that are good enough. They deliver the solution and then decide that there must be a whole bunch of other customers out there that need the same thing. Maybe. But maybe not.

In my experience you need to speak with at least 10-15 potential customers before you can see any significant patterns and get any real clarity. After 10 or so interviews you should have a good sense as to whether or not the problem you’re proposing to solve is important enough.

One customer doesn’t automatically represent a worthwhile market. It’s just one customer. And you need to know why they’re a customer (or a potential customer) before making the big assumption that they represent a full-blown market. If they became a customer because they didn’t know any better (never bothered looking for something else), or they’re your friends, or some other non-replicable and scalable reason, you could be in trouble.

There’s No “Shitty” in MVP

Lean Startup isn’t responsible for the deluge of crappy products being released by mediocre startups.

Erick Schonfeld makes that suggestion in his recent post Details Matter. I’d argue that the mainstream usage of things like Twitter and Facebook (along with social media’s ability to create incredible influencers), lower costs and barriers to entry (development is easier/faster), and the popularization of startups overall, has collectively increased the volume of startups. Startup founders are now celebrities. I suspect that the economy plays a role too; when college students look into the job market and see fewer and fewer opportunities, the alternative is to do something on your own. None of these things have anything to do with Lean Startup.

If anything, Lean Startup has grown popular in response to the overwhelming volume of startups launching (and failing), because more entrepreneurs need more help.

Erick is right on one point though: details matter. They matter a lot. And no one has ever argued otherwise. Just look at a Lean Canvas and the constraints it provides, and you understand (in this case for designing your startup) just how detail oriented you have to be. There’s no room in a Lean Canvas to be anything but detailed. The same holds true when thinking about user flows, user acquisition, and the overall experience in your application.

Erick also suggests “crafting something really extraordinary,” which makes perfect sense. That should be your goal. You should be selling magic not technology.

The question of course is how you define “really extraordinary”?

If you’re thinking solely about design or “polish” you may build something that’s beautiful but not valuable. Design can be crucial, but by itself it doesn’t create enough value. And I think this is what Erick is suggesting — that you need to be extremely attentive to the details around polish and design. Turns out it’s extremely hard to do, most people won’t get this right, and most will fail. But more than that, most will fail to create value. That’s just the reality of things.

The acronym MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product not Minimum Shitty Product.

Lots of people will create shitty products. It’s just the way it goes. Lots of people will also create beautiful products that are still shitty because they don’t provide enough value. Lean Startup provides a learning framework for recognizing mistakes and not repeating them. Most importantly, it provides a framework for trying to understand value creation for customers, which is what really matters.

« Older Entries
About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

Follow Ben on TwitterFollow this blog via email
Startup Tools
Recent Posts
Find Stuff
Startup Resources
Please Check Out:
NextMontreal.com I Spy Montreal
Key Categories
Topics
Disclaimer
The opinions and commentary on this site are mine and mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of my employer, GoInstant.

Instigator Blog runs WordPress and uses the Minimal theme by Curt Ziegler.