Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#31

Post by jjs » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:14 PM UTC

ConradHex wrote: post #22

Several years ago I co-founded a small game company. We busted our butt working 80 hours a week for months on end to get stuff done. We had one game that we shipped and were proud of; it was a budget game, but it was superior to many other games at that price point ($20). Anyway, one reviewer wrote: "I would prefer the soothing comfort of a spork being gouged in my eye rather than playing a few more minutes of this g…

You should have mailed him a letter saying that you were sorry that he didn't like the game and to please find enclosed one (1) plastic spork.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#32

Post by pg » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:18 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

I think this is the wrong question. Fake praise does a lot more damage than mean-spirited criticism. Because fake praise has nothing but well-meaning behind it, while mean-spirited criticism can actually point out things that need fixing. In addition, fake praise can mask a lot of flaws that should be fixed. I'm of the mind that the more mean criticism you get the better off you probably are -- people at least took t…

Fake praise does a lot more damage than mean-spirited criticism.

I don't think that's true. Bogus praise is self-correcting in a way that bogus criticism isn't. If bogus praise gives you an unduly high opinion of yourself, you at least keep working, and the resistance of the medium may push your opinion of yourself back down to where it should be. Whereas harsh critism can discourage you from working, so you never get the successes that would have corrected your opinion of yourself.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#33

Post by tlrobinson » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:20 PM UTC

"it's ashley, this website ROCKS ! haha jk !"

That "jk" was just devastating.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#34

Post by jdrock » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:33 PM UTC

We had our firm get reviewed here on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=347359). Actually the comments here were pretty good overall. I remember going to a tech meetup in town here... describing what we did seem to personally offend some people. I had people practically yelling at me that what we were doing was terrible and stupid. A few months later, we are featured on GigaOm with a pretty positive article (http://gigaom.com/2008/10/27/more-money-i-game-developers-wi...) :)

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#35

Post by kirubakaran » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:38 PM UTC

dan_sim wrote: post #13

okeumeni wrote: post #10

This was not actually said about my startup but a good friend of mine’s startup, before he even got a chance to finish introducing his startup to his former class mates one of them said: ‘Wow that’s cute!’ They all replied ‘Yeah that’s very nice!’ 2 years later he had $20M in the bank and had employed 3 of those friends.

The worst part of that story is that his friends probably didn't mean it. Probably the meanest thing is people that don't believe in what you're doing but don't want to say it. They think it will discourage you. So, you go on thinking "well, they liked it at least" when they didn't. That's bad.

Trying to charge for your service is one way to quickly find out what people thing.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#36

Post by okeumeni » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:39 PM UTC

dan_sim wrote: post #17

robfitz wrote: post #8

we got this one: "IF YOU TYPE TO ME ONE MORE TIME I’LL SUE YOUR BUTT OFF OF THIS COUNTRY!!!"

Did you type to him one more time?

I swear I would have.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#37

Post by kirubakaran » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 6:41 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #27

If you want to see mean, try writing essays.

I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#38

Post by blurry » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 7:00 PM UTC

I once had a startup which was basically an online database of professional actor and model videos. My all time favorite put-down came when we first got into model videos.

We did some test shoots for a couple established agencies (Elite, Q Models) and were looking to get into more doors. My partner's girlfriend at the time was a model so I asked her to get us a meeting with her bookers. Her [strong] opinion was that for a variety of seemingly good reasons (too long to list here) web video would never work in the modeling industry and we were pretty much wasting our time.

Five minutes later, on a completely unrelated topic, she mentioned that her best friend, also a model, was going on a video shoot that week. Turned out her agency (Wilhelmina) thought this new online video thing was, ya know, promising.

I am still scratching my head over that one. She wasn't your stereotypical 18-year old airhead and she was clearly sympathetic to our cause...

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#39

Post by yan » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 7:03 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #32

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

I think this is the wrong question. Fake praise does a lot more damage than mean-spirited criticism. Because fake praise has nothing but well-meaning behind it, while mean-spirited criticism can actually point out things that need fixing. In addition, fake praise can mask a lot of flaws that should be fixed. I'm of the mind that the more mean criticism you get the better off you probably are -- people at least took t…

Fake praise does a lot more damage than mean-spirited criticism. I don't think that's true. Bogus praise is self-correcting in a way that bogus criticism isn't. If bogus praise gives you an unduly high opinion of yourself, you at least keep working, and the resistance of the medium may push your opinion of yourself back down to where it should be. Whereas harsh critism can discourage you from working, so you never ge…

Can't it be said that undue praise will make the author work less hard, having achieved the dopamine high of accomplishment? Where as criticism can spur harder work from people set out to "prove themselves." I'm not saying either way is good or bad, I'm just saying both of our examples are anecdotal and either can have the desire effect. All depends on the criticism and the outlook and personality of the recipient.

Re: Ask HN : What's the meanest thing that has been said about your startup?

#40

Post by rokhayakebe » Tue, Jan 20, 2009, 7:03 PM UTC

kirubakaran wrote: post #37

pg wrote: post #27

If you want to see mean, try writing essays.

I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.

Human nature. They will love you first. Hate you second. And when you are gone, they will love you again, claiming that all those things you wrote/said were prophecies, visions.