
Ask HN: How to turn an idea down without hurting sb feelings? - throwaway155216
Since some months ago, I&#x27;m the midst of a very heavy struggle trying to keep my small company going before I eventually  give up entirely. Pandemics has made things a bit tougher.<p>I&#x27;ve been really honest about my situation with my family and friends, and sought for some advice from them. I thought it would be nice to get some insight from outsiders. It hasn&#x27;t gone as I thought it would, though.<p>I&#x27;ve been in this industry for eight years or so. I&#x27;m humble enough to admit that I haven&#x27;t learned much about the business side, but my knowledge is also not an absolute zero.<p>I don&#x27;t want to sound arrogant, but I must say that some of the ideas I got are really terrible.<p>Some would demand me to spend time or money I don&#x27;t have; some are simply too evidently bad to me as in &quot;send a detailed mail to your prospects about the benefits of your product&quot;; &quot;redo your website&quot; -- I&#x27;m currently on the third version of my website; &quot;you need to assess the product-market fit&quot; -- this is not an innovative product, there&#x27;s already half dozen companies selling similar products in my country and they are doing great. I only don&#x27;t know how to compete with them.<p>It&#x27;s saddening because I usually ask for introductions, contacts and ideas about sales and I end up getting generic advice targeting areas of my business which people have little to no expertise on. And the worst is: people who give the shittiest advice is usually the most passionate about their own terribly bad ideas.<p>I don&#x27;t wanna hurt their feelings but I also don&#x27;t want to hurt my bank account even badly. And to deal with their outbursts has made my head even messier. So I stopped trying to take advice from them, which, however, I believe is also sub-optimal.<p>So I considered asking you guys about some advice on how to cope with it.
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uberman
Who is/are "sb" and why would you hurt their feelings for not acting on their
advice?

One thing you might think about is if the advice you get is truly bad. It well
might be, but apparently the status quo is also not working.

I am not sure "redo your website" is likely to solve anything, but certainly
reaching out to prospects can be very valuable as can advertising.

There could be changes to your site that would be extremely important if your
sales funnel is not right (or non-existent). Something as simple as ensuring
there is a clear single call to action or thing on every page that you want a
prospective client to do or interact with could be very helpful.

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gus_massa
> _And the worst is: people who give the shittiest advice is usually the most
> passionate about their own terribly bad ideas._

This is quite common. I work in a University. If you have a discussion about
how to fix education, people who give the shittiest advice is usually the most
passionate about their own terribly bad ideas.

