Listen and Follow Your Heart

Credit: justinlattaway.com

A successful entrepreneur told me something this morning that is pretty true: “You’re only as good as your weakness.”

Take for example, perseverance, which could be seen in two ways. When your startup succeeds, the people around you say you have effing awesome determination. But when you fail people say you are way too stubborn.

Which is true?

I thought about it but concluded that an entrepreneur needs to know when to let go or when to keep moving forward. Letting go doesn’t necessary mean giving up your dream. Rather, it’s more about finding an alternative way to reach your goals when facing difficulties.

So how do we know when we need that change?

Besides user data or taking advice from mentors, a lot of the time my heart is the best filter and indicator of my next move. I do track user data and based on what I receive, make changes accordingly. But most of the time I make changes based on my gut feeling. So far, I haven’t gone too wrong. My gut, surprisingly, tends to be right (at least for now).

The world can say all kinds of good and bad things about your startup – “Your product sucks,” “It rocks so much that I use it everyday,” “You should change focus.”

But the thing that matters is what you believe in. It is, after all, your startup and you should know it better than others.

I tend to listen to people who have real solid entrepreneurship experience and are usually critical and not afraid to tell the truth. For folks who haven’t been entrepreneurs before, I will often discount their advice. But that is just me.

You see, even after picking up external advice, we often follow our heart anyway. And sadly most people like to hear nice things rather than the truth. These are the folks who can’t be entrepreneurs. Though nice words are encouraging, what really helps in product development is honest and painful feedback.

Take all advice and feedback with a grain of salt. Listen, filter, and then follow your heart. You know your product better than anyone else does.

You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart,