
You’re only getting the nice feedback - jaf12duke
http://blog.42floors.com/youre-getting-nice-feedback/
======
rdtsc
Saying something more critical has some downsides and upsides.

Downsides:

* You could burn a bridge if you are not careful. It is a small world after all in certain domains.

* Open yourself back to criticism, person starts defending themselves, worse they go on twitter about it.

* You help them too much so now they compete better with someone you invested with. Telling someone they screwed up would be giving them an edge. Sometimes investors might not want that. It is better to provide dismissive or false feedback ("you guys are awesome, it is me not you, I just don't have time, keep working hard on this"). Basically give them false feedback so they don't realize how badly they are fucking up.

* It creates a negative social vibe. Some people are just averse to negative public display of emotions. It rattles their nerves too much, regardless of how it starts or who causes it.

Upsides:

* You get to feel better (this is the most important but people forget). You are a teacher giving feedback to an inexperienced person. It makes you feel good and smart. This is an egotistical reason to do it.

* You like the person so you want to help them. Maybe you hope they accept the feedback, fix the issues and you come back to you. Note this involves believing in them to start with. This is an altruistic reason.

In general the downsides are more risky than the upsides. So people will
choose not to give negative feedback.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think this is really spot on. When my startup in 1997 started selling things
to a Japanese partner one of our investors remarked that 'we will consider it'
was Japanese for 'no' and 'we will seriously consider it' was Japanese for 'as
long as I draw breath this won't happen.' But navigating that positive based
feedback could be very useful. Discussions in hypotheticals become more common
and with our partner a very popular technique for providing negative feedback
was to discuss this other person they were working with who was having issues
(sort of like telling the doctor your "friend" has these symptoms but is too
shy to come in and talk about them.) By keeping the conversation very firmly
and plausibly directed elsewhere, the downsides were mitigated.

~~~
omarrr
I think that's great advice and great way of giving feedback.

~~~
jared314
I'm actually not sure how to apply that advice in real world situations.
Giving negative feedback usually triggers aggression, and group reprisal,
while switching to "hypotheticals" and "friends" makes it sound as if i'm
talking down to them, which also triggers aggression and group reprisal. So, I
normally look for the socially anonymous outlet for my opinion, like
downmoding the "me too" and "thanks" comments, and then move on with my life.
Because, while the comments are not hateful or disruptive, they don't add
anything to a discussion.

------
AndrewKemendo
>Some VCs said, “We like you, but we need to do some more due diligence on the
space.” Then they asked us for a bunch of hard-to-get stuff – market research,
traction metrics, and better proof of growth. But even when we got them this
information they still didn’t say yes.

That one is the classic "weak leader" no. I had this happen to me while I was
still in college. Where I went everyone had specific rules for each class,
where the seniors had the most leniency, but were still not given real
freedoms.

As part of a negotiations class, myself and three others had to create a topic
and then negotiate a deal with someone. I chose to negotiate more freedoms for
the seniors with one of our top officials. We did a ton of background research
on why and how and implications etc... We gave our pitch, answered lots of
"tough" questions and afterwards asked "So are you willing to make the
change?"

The response was a fantastic display of political wriggling but ended up with
basically this response: "I think this is great you guys, but here is what I
need you to do so we can make this happen. I need a legal review from 4
different legal disciplines, then I need to see a study of expected outcome
effectiveness for your proposal, then you will need to do a poll of the
student body to see if they would accept it. Only then, will we be able to
make a truly INFORMED decision."

I saw the NO from a mile off that day, so I said thank you, got my A in the
class (Despite not getting to any BATNA) and went on with my life having seen
what a disguised NO really looks like. I am confident even if I had done all
that work the answer would have still been no, I just would have put hundreds
of hours into getting a firmer no.

~~~
jmduke
(n.b.: BATNA is 'best alternative to a negotiated agreement', which is exactly
what it sounds like. Think of it as the negotiating equivalent of the 9-5 you
can always go back to if your startup fails.)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Yep, in this case there was no negotiated agreement and no alternative so it
was just a hail mary "negotiation." In contrast, other groups negotiated
things like the cleaning of a microwave between roommates, so we were given a
little slack for formal technique because of who we were pitching to.

~~~
pedrocr
In that case the BATNA was for things to stay as they were. There's always a
BATNA, the point is to know what that is beforehand just so you don't end up
doing a deal that actually has a worse value than no deal.

You may be mistaking BATNA with ZOPA (zone of potential agreement). There
wasn't any ZOPA here apparently.

~~~
vinceguidry
There's another reason to know your BATNA, understanding the leverage you
have, if any. If the only BATNA you can think of is no more and no less than
the continuance of the status quo, then there's a good chance you have none.

~~~
pedrocr
I think we're saying the same thing. If the status quo is 100 your BATNA is by
definition >= 100. It may be 120 though, if there's some other thing you can
do that improves your situation if you can't get the deal done. So if the deal
is worth 150 to you and the other party tries to negotiate for 110 claiming
"it's still better for you than the status quo", knowing your BATNA allows you
to say "nope, I'll do X and get 120 without the deal".

~~~
vinceguidry
Sure, it's the same principle, but I was thinking more in the sense of knowing
whether you're wasting your time or not. Asking for a raise, for instance. If
your job is commoditized and there's no difference between you and someone
else doing it, that means the balance of power in the exchange lies with your
employer and your BATNA is to just keep working there at your current salary.
You have no leverage.

The CFO at the company I work for tried to jerk me around by saying they
wanted to put off bringing me on permanent, a $400 a week difference, for
months. The company's BATNA in this situation was even worse than the status
quo. It took them four months to find me and I've been doing great. I made
some token efforts at negotiating, then started playing hardball by calling
the staffing agency and threatening to leave. They folded practically
instantly.

------
auctiontheory
How true. Also, most people, in my experience, are unable or unwilling to
accept frank feedback. They will get their feelings hurt, argue, get angry, or
just block out what you're saying. (At least this is true in my experience in
the US - perhaps some other countries have a more direct culture, e.g.
Germany/Israel/Russia?)

So if you can project your ability to calmly receive frank feedback, others
may be more likely to tell you what they really think.

------
7Figures2Commas
Just about everything in this post seems to assume that investors are the
center of the entrepreneur's world when it comes to feedback and validation.
That's a real problem because if you have domain expertise (which you should),
there's a very good chance that you will know more about your market than 9
out of 10 investors you meet.

Once you recognize that most investors will be capable of offering little in
the way of meaningful (read: specific) feedback, it isn't hard to identify the
source of the most valuable feedback: target customers.

The good news: more often than not, it's fairly easy to locate potential
customers who will be eager to look at what you have and give you an ear-full
of honest, informed feedback at no cost. Some might even go on to become your
first customers, but even if none do, I can guarantee you that you won't walk
away from 52 meetings with potential customers wanting for real feedback.

~~~
furyofantares
I believe this was regarding feedback about why they were choosing not to
invest.

------
andrewljohnson
What I'd like to know is how to get 52 meetings.

* Can you get 52 VC meetings in the valley, cold? Is that possible without being part of an accelerator, or knowing influential people?

* If your personal network doesn't flower into a bunch of meetings, then where do you get more?

* Is it events and meetups, cold emails, making noise online, some combination of these?

~~~
AznHisoka
What I'd like to also know is:

Would you rather get 52 meetings with VC's or 52 meetings with potential
customers who are willing to tell you their pains, frustrations and problems?

------
onion2k
Even outside of the VCs, it's true that startups generally don't get to hear
negative feedback on their idea from _anyone_. On the whole, people are really
nice. No one wants to say "I don't think that'll work because X" as, in other
other sphere, it's just a really horrible thing to say to someone. Startups
actually need to hear that stuff though. It's not horrible to tell a startup
you think there's a barrier to their success; it's _damn_ useful information.

It's a shame too, because I'm sure there's a lot of startups that could have
used some honesty from the people around them early on to modify and pivot and
consequently not fail.

~~~
jaf12duke
Actually, entrepreneurs receive tons of negative feedback on their ideas.
Regardless of the industry, most senior leaders in that industry will proclaim
that some innovation won't work (otherwise, it would've already been tried).
At FlightCaster, we received loads of strategic feedback--all of which was
fairly wild speculation.

Challenging an entrepreneur on the validity of an idea is actually a form of
nice feedback. It seems like it's saying, "I believe in you but I have found
some concrete roadblock that will cause this to fail." That's almost always
bullshit, because startups change forms throughout their life, shifting
strategies and tactics to avoid such roadblocks.

Really, that feedback is saying "I don't think you have what it takes to get
around roadblocks."

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Maybe its just lazy. You ask for feedback; they think of challenges and tell
you. Who wants to spend the time digging into YOUR space to figure out
detailed analysis? Easier to say "Competition, IP required, time-to-market too
long" because they're always an issue.

------
dsugarman
loved the piece, just one part kind of got me:

 _You simply need to become more formidable._

I think VCs may be good at judging confidence, but a wide array of stereotypes
and predispositions come to mind when picking whether someone with no track
record will make it. I really don't get the feeling that VCs in general are
good at picking the formidable founders, and in the end, really just place
bets on the guys who someone else already bet on. I think YC does a great job
of picking founders who have the potential to be formidable and allowing them
to raise after the program.

~~~
auctiontheory
_I really don 't get the feeling that VCs in general are good at picking the
formidable founders_

The sentence you are responding to is the whole point of the article. VCs
don't have to be good at picking formidable founders. (I don't know whether
they are or aren't.) They just have to believe that they are good at it - and
they do.

------
lpolovets
I recently moved to the VC side from software engineering. I was sure that the
biggest value that I'd have for startups would be my engineering experience,
but what founders seem to appreciate most is direct feedback. Even when saying
'no', I try to add some useful bullet points about what my fund's concerns
are, what we'd like to see in order to invest in a latter round, any oddities
that I noticed on the website or mobile app, etc. Founders seem to really like
that -- especially product feedback.

------
beachstartup
This is also true in romance and friendships. It's a fairly severe faux pas to
actually tell someone why you rejected them - very, very few people take this
sort of honesty well.

------
xwowsersx
Recently read "The Mom Test" which had some good advice about how to avoid the
positive feedback that people only give you because they want to spare your
ego or whatever. Not exactly applicable to this post, but still some pretty
relevant ideas in there which I've made good use of.

------
sjtgraham
Jason is absolutely crushing it with these posts. I wouldn't be surprised if
he's made partner at YC; either imminently on a part-time basis, or otherwise
once he's exited 42floors.

------
joe_the_user
So what are the real check points:

* Track record?

* Strong verbal presentation? (Confidence, ex-football lineman, what?)

* Connections?

* What else??

* Something else?

