How I realized why people kept calling my startup stupid

I would initially take my fallen face and leave. But when I got the same response over and over, I started asking follow-up questions, mostly out of frustration.

“Why do you think so?” I’d ask. I would get one of the following answers:

• “Because there’s no market for this.”
• “Because if I am currently using a better alternative, I will not move away from it just for this additional feature.”
• “Because might bake this feature in their already successful product.”
• “Because it is too ahead of its time.”

And for each of those reasons, I had answers:

• There’s no market? We’ll create one.
• Won’t you migrate? We’ll offer discounts.
• Someone else might build it? We are David, and we’ll demolish the Goliath.
• Too ahead of its time? The world will catch up to us.

Like every startup founder who’s invested a lot of sweat, money, and time in building something, I stayed adamant like a lioness protecting her cubs. Once I asked them, “Don’t you realize how much effort I’ve put in building this?” The person replied, “I do realize. But I don’t give a rat’s ass to it. You were stupid to waste your efforts to build this pile of shit.” (These are the exact words I was told.)

But I still hadn’t forgotten this: