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9 Mar 10 Why you should stop listening to people
When you have fresh business ideas, the only test you should do with other people is to see if they get what it is you want to do quickly. Can you explain it on short terms?
Beyond that, assuming you are not dealing with a balanced and very creative person, you should not care too much whether they think it’s a good idea or a bad one, you should also take any “advise” with scoopfuls of salt.
There are a few very good reasons why you should listen less to other people when you have new ideas and instead let them gestate in your own mind rather than the minds of others:
Firstly, the more people you use for input on an idea, the more plain and non-unique it will become. The more people you want to satisfy and bring into the frame around your idea, the more bland it becomes. There is a good reason why Apple never ask for user feedback before they launch a product - they know an excellent designer is better than feedback from an army of grey faces. If you have ever sat through the pain of massive approval committees and endless meetings to get something done in a large organization, you’ll know exactly what I am talking about. Large crowds of decision makers make for lousy, average ideas, if they ever get to the execution part at all.
The truth is, people often have a lot of opinions on what they think they want, but they rarely if ever know what they actually want.
The second and third reasons are almost as important: when you present people with an idea, most people will fall into one of two categories - they will either say it is the best thing since sliced bread (as they would will most ideas presented to them), because they are cheerleaders of everything people come up with, however hare-brained it is.
Or they will belong to the category that immediately will try to poke holes in your idea, even though it is to be expected from a fresh idea that there are holes and that it needs further thought and development.
So what am I suggesting instead? When it comes to business ideas, it’s simple: get to market fast. The market place will provide the best feedback you can get - either people will be prepared to use and buy what you have made, or they won’t. Little tweaks or major changes may change peoples willingness to use and buy what you provide, and this will be a better teacher than any boardroom or friend advise that you could ever get.
