Entrepreneurship - Dealing with criticism & overly friendly feedback

Most entrepreneurs venture into business by investing their life savings. Often we read stories of successful businesses created from the scratch with few cents in savings to few who saved thousands of dollars before investing them into their venture. Its a battle for survival for the ones who has invested their hard-earned money. They most often end up being on their own until a point in time, the rest of the enterprise including their employees start believing that the model/product could succeed. It is the same for any enterprise - the one that has a single founder, or an enterprise with co-founders who have also invested capital. No entrepreneur would ever have an idea as to how far their savings might get them to. Savings vanish within weeks, even though one thought it might help last for few months, while getting you no where. When your enterprise doesn't meet up with the market & customer expectations, its the entrepreneur who is most badly affected. If the business doesn't work, then the consequences are so severe that one often sees Darwin's theory unfold right in front! Hence, most often the biggest desire to make the business work is with the entrepreneur himself, as there is no one else in the enterprise whose success is directly linked to the enterprise itself.

Startup entrepreneurs live in a war zone for months. As a startup entrepreneur you are at the receiving end of criticism, and often face rejection by potential customers, partners, investors and even your own employees. People won't hesitate to criticize you if they are unhappy. On the contrary, friends and family almost always offer overly friendly feedback, knowing nothing of the expense of starting their own business. You often hear them say that your idea is excellent and would work, even adding that there is no reason why your idea wouldn't work. Entrepreneurs surely need positive reinforcement, but not mindless encouragement! Its equally dangerous for entrepreneur's to be surrounded by people who have no opinion and almost agree with what you do. They may not do anything bad to you, but neither do anything good.

My learning is that entrepreneur's must not seek comfort in the mindless encouragement, but learn how to deal with criticism and rejection. Many entrepreneurs set out on their path with a lot of hope, determination and inspiration, only to turn back because they couldn't deal with the emotional impact of crushing rejections and vicious criticism. You will be judged by people around you for everything you do. Be prepared for rejection and criticism at every step. Take each rejection (each step) as a learning, have the courage to realize & accept your vulnerability. Working up the courage to move past your own vulnerability is often the greatest challenge you’ll face on the way to achieving your goals as an entrepreneur.