Why Good Feedback Isn’t Always Good Feedback

I remember my first startup. I remember coming up with the idea. I remember getting excited. Most of all I remember my unwillingness to absorb any negative feedback. I believed that my idea was the best idea and anyone who told me to the contrary was just trying to shoot me down. I’ve grown since then and one of the primary reasons I’ve been able to learn and absorb so much since then, is because I slashed that notion. That’s what this article is about.

Good feedback isn’t always good feedback. I remember many of those humbling conversations. I remember the sinking feeling I’d get in the pit of my stomach when someone told me that I was wrong, that my idea wasn’t thought through enough. My mind was indecisive about shifting into anger or devastation. I don’t think this is a unique experience to me, I think it’s a natural obstacle to overcome when you’re bright and bushy eyed.

So why is bad feedback important? Well I don’t think I need to get overly technical about this. People telling you that your Idea F#*king Sucks is healthy. Not because it always feels good but because negative feedback is honest feedback. Now of course it doesn’t mean that this feedback should ever be delivered in a mean or belittling tone, because we have all been there and that’s not productive. However it does mean that people are “ Thinking Critically ”. There are courses in university dedicated to critical thinking, learning how to challenge your opinions or ideas and take them a layer deeper. We are constantly told to think critically about things, but for some reason when someone else is thinking critically for us we don’t like it so much.

Now if you’ve made it to the fourth paragraph don’t go anywhere. I’m done with the fluff… I remember the exact moment where I really started listening to negative feedback. I was 18 years old and I was meeting with a VC. I was working on a AR product for the real estate market. Our whole business model was predicated on the fact that realtors with successful businesses would buy this software. I was excited for this meeting and I was daydreaming about what this big wig might say to me. “Great idea Mac, where do I sign?”...but it didn’t go like that. He immediately starting bashing our idea. So once again I went to that indecisive place in my brain, am I angry or am I devastated and disappointed? He snapped me out of it. I think he could see it in my eyes, having once been in my shoes. “ Mac bad feedback is not bad feedback “ he said to me. I remember…