As social beings, humans are constantly seeking the approval of their friends and peers. No matter the context, be it personal or professional, we love to know what other people think about our endeavors. Personal feedback from our surroundings help us improve our social fit. Professional feedback from peers can help us improve our work and make us more effective and efficient beings.

Good feedback, bad feedback

However, important as it is, we all know that getting the wrong kind of feedback might not be very productive.

Often times we find ourselves wondering whether the feedback we receive was affected by our personal relationship with the provider of the feedback, or even whether the provider spent much time thinking about the feedback being offered to us.

When it comes to building an early-stage startup company, getting the wrong kind of feedback might be disastrous. Startup founders constantly deal with uncertainty and risk. The mere idea of a startup company is creating a product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Therefore, getting the wrong feedback, whether it is positive or negative, is destructive to the founders’ sense of accomplishment and self-confidence.

For example, getting false positive feedback is as harmful as getting a destructive one. False positive is one of the most inefficient positions for founders. It could lead to spending a lot of time, money and energy working on the wrong idea.

The problem with family, friends and voluntary mentors

The conclusion is that founders require unbiased and professional feedback if they wish to build a successful startup. But it is almost impossible to obtain the same.

The reason is that most founders source it from 2 main sources:

1. Family and friends
2. Mentors (ex. Entrepreneurs, VC investors, Industry specialists, etc.)

Each of these sources has its own cons. Let’s try and list them:

1. Family and friends – these who are closest to you most probably also care deeply for you. One might think this is a big advantage. However, those who are closest to you probably give you feedback based on their personal feelings towards your project. Your parents might be too supportive because they believe in your ability to succeed. Alternatively, they might be overly negative as a means to deter you from this very insecure and uncertain path regardless to the quality of your idea.
2. Mentors – mentors are people that help founders on a semi-consistent basis. By this we mean that many mentors give their advise as part of their voluntary participation in a specific program. While their advise might be solid and for sure trustworthy, the problem lies in the voluntary nature of their participation. Giving voluntary advice means that the providing side might be less committed or accountable for the advice.

The solution: look for it in professional and unbiased sources

For feedback to be constructive for startup founders, it needs to be (a) professional – given by people that understand the industry or the challenges of founding a startup, in addition to having actual stake in the game, meaning that they must have an interest in helping you; and (b) unbiased – given by people that don’t have any personal interest in you or in your project. These are mostly people that do not have a personal connection to the founder.

The problem is that despite its’ importance, access to unbiased and professional feedback is low. This is where our feedback feature comes to play: Our platform offers the opportunity to get every completed assignment reviewed and scrutinized. The feedback is given by our founders’ support team for affordable rates, making sure you get productive support throughout the development process.