A year ago, I was talking to a fellow start-up founder and I realized how much he likes to stick with his ideas, rather than change them based upon other people's impressions or suggestions. Many people would simply think of this as passion for an idea. But I stepped back and thought about it some, and I wondered: is this passion or simply stubbornness? It is sometimes hard to figure out if a founder's passionate about an idea. I have to admit, even us founders are sometimes confused about our own ideas, and we often have complicated emotions surrounding them.
From my own personal experience as the founder of a start-up, I have noticed that it does not matter how much you love an idea: you have to be open to suggestions and feedback, no matter how harsh they might be. Your success depends on it. Founders are often misunderstood as stubborn when they decide to ignore someone's feedback. And that's true. It is important to document every piece of feedback you get, from simple suggestions to complicated analytics to great ideas from friends or family or users. Every new idea or piece of feedback about your start-up has immense value and it's up to the founder(s) to prioritize these ideas and suggestions and utilize them. So, as a founder, you need to be practical and rational. It's easy to shrug off a suggestion based on what you immediately feel about it, but there is not much space for your immediate reaction and emotions when it comes to ideas on better positioning your start-up.
As Paul Graham (PG) says, "Make something people want." This is really easy to do, actually, if you, as a founder, are ready to hear from your users and implement what they tell you. So keep the communication channels open and make sure that your users have easy access to you, whether that be to praise what you're doing or to complain about it. Either way, their feedback is valuable. Never lose sight of this, as this is what will help you build your product in the right direction. I know that it is sometimes hard to abandon pieces of your project that you love or worked hard on, but it's OK: what your users want is what you should be building. Again, you can't let your emotions enter into this equation at all.
At Zaranga, we have learned this quickly and we understand that we can only shape our vision through reaching out to users and getting their feedback. We need to know what they worry about, what they like, and how they operate. We have a customer service number (888-317-7774) as well as an easily accessible email address (support@zaranga.com) that our users can use to easily communicate with us and openly express their needs, pain points, etc. We even assertively reach out to our users for their feedback. In the last year alone, we have learned a ton from our users, and we plan to continue that tradition this year. Even you, as a reader of this blog, have important things to teach us when it comes to a vacation rental marketplace. So feel free to reach out!
In short, if you are not hearing from your users, open the channels up to make accessibility easy for them. They need to be able to easily tell you what they think. It will make them feel good to vent (or praise you) and it will benefit you, because you will know something that you didn't know before. And maybe implementing it will change your vision for the better.