Feedback: the core factor of a startup’s success
When you are starting a startup you experience a lot of things: productivity, happiness, the feeling that you can conquer the world and of course anxiety and panic.
It is very common to have all these feelings; it is an idea coming to life with you giving a part of your self into it. But it’s not all about the ideas that you and your team has: it is also about the ideas that others have about yours.
In other words, feedback.
When you are starting something new that you don’t have a particular experience on, it is always good and productive to hear what others have to say about it.
The “good” feedback
Positive feedback is of course always good since it gives you a sense of gratitude and of acknowledgement that this idea of yours, is really something that could bring the change to the startup world and there will be people that will actual use your product and/or service you offer. Positive feedback gives you the strength to move forward with the same positive attitude. Good feedback, though doesn’t always have to be positive. Negative feedback can be useful too and will help you see your idea’s flaws and problems and therefore avoid them in the future. When it is from people that mean well, something negative is not a bad sign. It is a sign that people care about your idea enough in order to help you understand the ways to make it better and correct any errors.
The “bad” feedback
As we said before, negative feedback is not always bad. Having that in mind, you have to be prepared to know the difference between feedback that means well and the one that is given to you out of jealousy and hatred. Feedback from someone who doesn’t appreciate your hard work and the hours you have spent working on your project, is something that you should not pay a lot of attention to. Try to find the core problem of their point of view and what really bothers them, appreciate their attempt to give you a feedback, but in the end, do not let it ruin your positive thinking towards your ideas and projects.
Listen to their stories
It is very important to ask your potential users (e.g. friends, relatives, co-workers, fellow students) whether they would use your product/service and why.
What would be different in their lives if they were using your product/service?
Most of the people you will ask, will have a story to tell you. Listen to these stories. Appreciate them and then find they way that you will implement them in your project in order to improve it.
The “Safe n’ Sound” project
“Safe n’ Sound” is a start up idea we had with my colleagues (Danai Lyratzi, Asimina Christodoulatou, Martha Davari, Christos Daniilidis, Charis Zarbalas) in the context of the Dare To Challenge workshop by Betty Tsakarestou. Safe n Sound is an app that offers a safer way home. The map shows the brightest and most crowded way for the user to get to their destination. There is also the “Red Button” service that in case of emergency sends the needed information in order for help to arrive.
After a lot of presentations about our progress during the Dare to Challenge Classes, I realised that the one thing that will make us move forward and will help us improve is the feedback that our classmates and our teachers were giving us. The feedback we received was all in all positive with points of improvement:
a) Almost everyone would have the app and use it on a daily basis and were really fond of our idea.
b) At first, we had to explain in detail how the app worked, which means that we may have to rethink our interface and the User Experience (UX) in order for it to be more friendly and easy operating by the user.
c) A lot of students told us about their own personal stories of walking back home alone or walking to a destination and they were afraid of their own safety. These stories helped us better understand our potential users and how their daily life unfolds. When our coordinator, Betty Tsakarestou told us about that one time she found herself in the middle of a riot in Exarcheia and she didn’t know where to head to or where to hide in order to be safe, we learnt about a new perspective and use of our app that we haven’t thought about before and may have never come up with if it weren’t for feedback.
To sum up, don’t be afraid to both give and receive feedback. If it is well meant and intends to improve the project/service/product it should be welcomed. Listen to your audience’s stories, accept and appreciate their feedback and turn them into productive steps for the improvement of your project!
Follow my teammates’ Medium stories about Safe n’ Sound:
-“Safe and Sound” app project., Our Dare to challenge team at Web Summit 2016, Safe n’ Sound app prototype by Danai Lyratzi
- “safe n’ sound”Our Client-User by Martha Davari
-“She asked for it’’ An article about Rape Culture, A meeting with a developer for Safe&Sound. by Charis Zarbalas
-Safe and Sound in the Microscope, The Safe and Sound’s experience through Dare to Challenge lab., by Christos Daniilidis
-“Safe n’ Sound” user experience by Asimina Christodoulatou
