Indie Hacker Diaries #19: Learning to Listen to Feedback

If you ask anybody who’s worked with me, you’ll likely get some version of “that guy is a pain in the ass.”

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been stubborn. Mom wanted me to eat my spaghetti? I dumped the entire bowl on my head and slapped a shit-eating grin on my face.

At the elementary school “economics fair,” I refused to take my parent’s advice to sell fudge because I was dead set on selling my hand-made, school spirit bookmarks.

I sold 3. The kid who sold shaved ice? Ran out of syrup.

This pattern has played out for most of my life. In some cases it’s helped me, but a lot of times, it’s been a Colt 45 to the foot.

Like I hinted at a few weeks back, ego is a big problem for an entrepreneur. It’s very easy to convince yourself that you’ve got it 100% figured out. That you’re unstoppable. That it’s just other people who need to catch up.

Settle down, Francis.

No, the reality is that you’re not always right and you need to learn how to listen without taking things personally. Don’t get in a huff because someone disagreed with your idea, offered up negative feedback, or otherwise dared to tell you that you weren’t perfect.

I’ve struggled with this for years. Some part of that little Spaghetti Monster has still been kicking around my system. Willing to dump the bowl if I didn’t get my way.

Even when I knew someone else was right, I’d fight it kicking and screaming, only changing course after it was too late.

This is what I want to share today.

Over the past week, Parrot got a grand total of 1 sign ups.

Yes, 1. Even though I thought I had nailed my pitch and sank the putt, it turned out, even with some healthy traffic from a Reddit post, you folks reading this newsletter, and some non-trivial clicks from Twitter and LinkedIn, I missed something (and for those curious, yes, everything has worked properly since day one).

Fortunately, that 1 sign up emailed me with some feedback. Now, in the past, I may have gotten defensive.

“No, no, no, you just don’t understand!”

This time, though, I listened. Immediately. I rolled out changes based on the feedback within two hours of opening the email.

The feedback? One of the big points of friction for signing up for Parrot—at least, until yesterday—was that you had to pay at least $5 in order to generate code.

Though it’s not much, it’s enough to make people lose interest (or at best, stash my link in there “no chance in hell I’ll remember this any time soon” bookmarks pile).

The feedback was thorough (thanks, Ross), but one thing in particular stood out. A gigantic, swinging piece of low-hanging fruit just waiting to be picked:

Give all of your new sign ups free tokens to generate code and try out Parrot, risk free. Eat the cost of giving away free tokens for new sign ups. Remove any hesitation from getting people to try out Parrot. Get out of your potential customer’s way and let the product demonstrate its own value.

Like I said when I announced Parrot: show, don’t tell.

So, that’s what I did. But instead of relying on my own sordid wisdom, I listened to what someone else said. That someone else also became the first customer for Parrot. Go figure.

And this is the new-found wisdom I want to share with you:

• Take your best shot at whatever it is you’re doing, but always go in with the assumption that you could be wrong.
• Learn to separate criticism of your product from criticism of you. Sure, you may get the odd person who wants to cut you down, but more often than not, the unsolicited feedback you get is other people wanting to help.
• Don’t just have gut reactions to feedback. Take them in, mull over them, and even if you disagree, ask where someone’s feedback may be right or helpful.
• Practice getting good at responding to implementing feedback quickly. This is how I twisted my own arm so-to-speak: unless I had a really good reason for ignoring the feedback, I made a point to just shut up and listen. Worst case scenario you can always roll back or try another one of your own gEnIuS iDeAs later.

So, now you can sign up for Parrot and get 10K tokens for free. That’s enough to generate a small handful of functions and see if Parrot is for you.

I’ve got more work to do implementing the rest of the feedback I received, so I’m going to end this one here.

A takeway to slap on a Post-It Note above your desk: Shut Up and Listen.

Ryan