When you start your own business, stuff gets real. There’s no hiding behind the corporate brand or distancing yourself from the firm (publicly or in your own mind). The startup is you and you are the startup. Negative feedback can feel like a personal attack. You squirm over the product and the website because you are bearing your soul.
In starting a startup you will encounter negative people. It’s a fact. Sometimes they’ll be people close to you. Sometimes those people will be unexpected. Their criticism may even be valid. It will hit a nerve — that suppressed feeling that you are wasting your time and your money.
The criticism cuts deep because you feel like you’re being brave. You are taking a positive step into an uncertain world. Building something new is hard enough. You thought you’d get more respect for having a go.
Here’s just a few things my co-founder has had said to her:
“You are trying to create a market for your idea, there is no market”
“There are lots of wooden toy brands, have you done a Google search?”
“You will build a snowflake website that no one will know about or visit”
“Millenials are idealistic and naïve. Experience will teach you the reality”
“Maybe this will work because the Honest Company worked and investors took note of that. But you guys need more celebrity Buzz”
“This market is too niche: whose ever heard of a Black Swan?”
“This can be a nice little lifestyle brand for you and your family, but its not something anyone serious would invest in”
“You can’t afford to be transparent”
“Husband and wife cofounders are a real risk”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but seriously, you have delusions of grandeur.”
Nasty huh…and we’re just making wooden toys.
Negative criticism is not your only foe. People will also let you down. They’ll praise your idea, agree to help and then do nothing. Start-ups reveal your own character and the character of others.
The good news is that you will also meet little angels along the way. Practical grounded people — the type of people who end up winners in life. Their CVs usually don’t tell the full story. They’re looking to help and adaptable as opportunities arise. They will be generous in their advice and introductions. They see the glass half full, when others see it half empty.
Friends and frenemies are pretty easy to spot if you’re looking for them. Just think, is this the sort of person who’ll send that helpful link or make that introduction. If not, then you should probably look for another way forward. Sometimes it’s worth prostrating yourself for that foot in the door but those circumstances are rare.
As for the critics, embrace criticism. Chew on criticism (fair or unfair) and extract every seed of truth — anything that could be useful in shaping and reshaping your vision and messaging. In start-ups you need crocodile skin. If you remove your ego, you’ll be a better founder and a better person.
