Navigating The Sea of Conflicting Advice As You Start Your Technology Company

As an experienced operator looking to start your own technology company, or build again getting early customer, founder and potential investor feedback is critical.

When you're in the early stages of building your startup, advice flows in from every direction.

Whether it's from seasoned entrepreneurs, investors, or well-meaning friends, you'll likely find yourself inundated with suggestions, each claiming to be the golden key to success. But with so much advice, often conflicting, how do you determine what’s truly valuable for your unique journey?

Here are afew mental models to help you sift through the noise and find the signal.

1. Context: Is the Advice Really Relevant to Your Situation?

Not all advice is created equal, and relevant is crucial. What worked for a unicorn startup in Silicon Valley might not be applicable if you're building a company in a different market or industry.

Not to mention, a different time or phase in the market. Before you act on any guidance, consider the context of your startup. Ask yourself: "Does this advice align with where I am in my journey? To what extent? Is it relevant to my market, my product, and my stage of growth?"

Context shapes the effectiveness of any strategy, so it’s essential to filter advice through the lens of your specific circumstances.

2. Source: Who is Giving the Advice?

In the startup world, the source of advice is as important as the advice itself perhaps even more. This goes withou saying, but sometimes in the shiny world of venture, not everything is at it seems. Go deeper into the experience and track record of the person offering guidance. Ask nuanced questions to gain clarity on how relevant the context of their personal experience might be?

Have they successfully navigated challenges similar to yours?

Do they have a deep understanding of your industry?

It’s easy to be swayed by someone who has had success in the past, but it’s crucial to recognize that their expertise may not translate perfectly to your situation. Seemingly smart people can give terrible advice if its not in their core area of experience, and vetting the credibility and relevance of the source can help you discern which advice to take seriously.

3. Biases: What Biases Influence Their Perspective?

Everyone has biases, whether they’re aware of them or not. And Bias is simply an absence of a complete and rounded data set. Investors may push for rapid scaling because it aligns with their need for a quick exit and quick pattern recognition heuristics are important to helping seperate signal from noise.

However, these heuristics can get outdated and industry veterans might advocate for traditional methods that feel safe but no longer relevant. Understanding the biases that underlie advice can help you gauge its true value. Ask yourself, “What motivations might be influencing this person’s perspective? Are they pushing for a solution that benefits them more than it benefits my startup?”

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What do they have to gain/lose from holding this position, and are they aware of this? Recognizing these biases can help you navigate advice with a clear head.

4. Exceptions: Could Your Situation Be the Exception?

Every rule has exceptions, and your startup might just be one. This one is tricky, because there is a tendency for natural entrepreneurial enthusiasm to want to believe this is true.

But look at the data as objectively as you can. Are the parallels they draw truly comparable to your situation. Conventional wisdom often doesn’t apply to groundbreaking or niche ideas. If someone advises you to follow a certain path, consider whether your unique circumstances warrant a different approach. Could you be the exception to the rule? You have more insight into the business -- perhaps you have a view that is unique to you that brings critical context that influences your decision.

Disruption doesn’t come from following the crowd—it comes from challenging norms and finding new ways to solve problems. Don’t be afraid to explore alternative strategies if you believe they align better with your vision.

5. Hindsight: How Is Hindsight Impacting Their Perspective?

Hindsight is 20/20 and advice often comes packaged with the benefit of hindsight, which can skew perspectives.

Ask nuanced questions that unearth insights into their rationale at the time and how that's evolved. It's easy for successful founders to look back and attribute their success to certain strategies but things are often smoothened out in retrospect. What worked in the past might not work in the future, especially as markets evolve. While there’s value in learning from others’ experiences, be cautious of advice that overly relies on past success stories.

The world of startups is dynamic, and what’s worked before may not necessarily work again.

6. Experiment, Experiment and Experiment Again

Ultimately everyone can have opinions but the market will decide. After sifting through feedback, carry out small, cheap and easy to validate experiments to test the underlying thesis while sticking to first principles.

Stay open minded, but also grounded because as a founder - you are a steward for whatever it is you're imprinting into the world. Trust your instincts - use them as data, to experiment in a direction to gather evidence.

At the end of the day, there’s a reason why you are the one building your startup and not someone else. You have a unique vision, and sometimes that means trusting your gut, even when well-meaning advice suggests otherwise.

The ability to listen to your intuition while carefully considering external advice is a crucial skill for any founder. It’s your startup, your vision, and your journey. Navigate it wisely, and always remember that the final call rests with you. After all, the most successful founders are those who have the courage to follow their own path, even amid a sea of conflicting advice.

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Till next time.

Maria