Don’t take too much advice:Feedback Vs Noise in Startup

Don’t take too much advice: Maybe this is the best advice for a startup entrepreneur! Startup is hard work and the journey gets harder when you start presenting your idea to people. When we talked about assessing your startup idea, the first suggestion was to test the idea for feedback. When you go out to get feedback, unfortunately you don’t always get useful feedback. As you grow your startup, you must get good at separating noise from feedback.

Here are some tips that might help you filter this feedback:

Feedback is always weighted, you can’t treat them all as the same. Some parameters you can use to assign weight to this feedback is:

• Relevant experience of the person in your area of work
• Startup expertise or exposure to the way entrepreneurs work
• Business or market experience that can help you grow

The worst advice you’ll ever receive is someone who tells you that it is a great idea and praises everything that you’ve done. Although it feels better, you can’t use it in any way. It is better to get rough feedback that will at least help you grow.

Don’t take too much advice – Meaning

The key motivator for this article is an inspiring quote by Ben Silbermann:

— Ben Silbermann, founder of Pinterest

What is the meaning of Don’t take too much advice? : If advice and feedback is good, why should we exercise caution? I think you already know the answer – not all feedback is useful or appropriate. Useful feedback needs to be relevant to your startup and the stage of your business plan. The best people you can get feedback from are:

• Potential customers
• Market or business experts
• Coaches and Mentors (Related: Choosing the right mentor for your business)
• Investors, board and advisors

As the business grows, you’ll get a few early adopters, anchor customers who will start acting as key sources of feedback. Again, make sure that there’s a difference between taking feedback and blindly following it. You can’t keep everyone happy. You must temper feedback with your business plan, strategy and pricing discussions.

Valuing advice in relation to your Business Plan

Your business plan is the biggest asset all through the early stages of your startup. The business plan acts as a living, breathing document that is constantly updated. You must update the plan based onThe plan is updated based on feedback and advice that you get from customers, market and experts in your field. The biggest advantage you have as a startup entrepreneur is the speed at which you can act on feedback to deliver results.

If you can’t always update the business plan quickly, make sure that you balance the advice with the business model canvas at least. The canvas gives you a holistic view of your overall business. Some advice might help you generate more revenue but if it hurts your channel partners or strategic pillars, it might not be the best advice to act on. (More insights on using the business model canvas can be found here)

Feedback while building prototypes and MVPs

Another stage where you get advice from people is when you build your MVP and prototypes. Remember, a prototype is not the final product. Not all customers will be able to understand it fully. Before you go out to take feedback, make sure that you contact the right type of customers who will be able to help you grow.

Also, when customers give you feedback, there might be an expectation that you’ll act on it quickly. Make sure that you set expectations clearly during the advice gathering process. Again, I’ll allude to the message – don’t take too much advice! Keep the feedback focused and make sure that they’re pointed on what you want to achieve from the feedback. Feedback without purpose can ruin your product roadmap and take you in the wrong direction. (More about how to build your MVP)

Go To Market and pricing

The first advice that you’ll receive about pricing is to reduce it! As soon as you hear this advice, you must ask the question – what do you want the perceived user value to be? Do you want it to appear as a cheap product or a luxury item? There are various questions to ask about the perception and business strategy before you start acting on the advice.

We also talked about demand based pricing that helps you create a segment for your startup. This will help you beat the conversations when people say that you must reduce your price to sell more. Sometimes it is ok to say no and move away because it is wrong for your business strategy. Ultimately, it comes back to your business plan and the strategic position you want to dominate as your startup grows.

Feedback and advice from Mentors

This takes me to a different article where I delved into a little more detail about mentors. Mentors do provide a lot of value for a startup, but at some point – the amount of feedback you receive need to be tempered.

Obviously it is your startup and you are the final decision maker about what happens with your solution. If in the business you have a lot of mentors, you sometimes end up in a state of confusion – particularly if you reach a state of conflicting advice.

I suppose the common theme in this is fairly clear:

“Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give — with a few exceptions — generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.”

— Ben Silbermann, founder of Pinterest

The questions I would constantly ask is

• What is the source of this advice?
• Why is someone telling me to do this?
• What is the overall gain and its impact on business strategy if you go ahead with this advice?

Then again – I would certainly say that this entire discussion also points towards advice and the only person who can decide when advice is too much advice is the one receiving it. Not everything makes sense at the same time – I suppose the entire theme is with one focus that an advice and decision are two different things. As long as it is tempered and balanced, they can yield some very good results.