Feedback > Revenue
Especially in the first 6-12 months within launch.
I know what you're thinking, how can feedback be more important than literal oxygen/runway!?
But it is. Because feedback is what leads you to the coveted Product-Market Fit (I don't know of another way, do you?).
It's what turns your fledgling side project into a sustainable long-term business with a working business model.
It's what provides you with runway forever.
In other words, revenue is giving you a fish, feedback is teaching you how to fish.
Source only from high-quality feedback channels
The best place to get feedback from is from people who:
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Don't know you (strangers)
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Fit your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
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Are put in a spot to pay, preferably soon or now (which is the most important thing).
Which leads me to the next point...
Friends make the worst customers
It might seem tempting and even natural to launch to your friends/family, your online circle, your safe space.
Because you've built up goodwill with them, they're likely to buy your product to support you, right?
Right, but this is one of the best examples of how you wouldn't want revenue over feedback.
Because first, this "revenue" doesn't count and, worse, it muddles the data and gives you false validation.
Second, their feedback is likely to be useless too, because they're tip-toeing around the truth, trying to be polite, trying not to hurt your feelings, and, worst of all, they don't even fit your ICP.
Prioritizing revenue over feedback in practice: an example
Last month, I launched Zylvie to a room of literal strangers (a private Facebook group with 17k members for software enthusiasts).
Let me just say it was such a tough crowd, and I saw my baby torn to shreds in real time.
It hurt, it was demoralizing, but it was necessary for my business to grow.
The feedback was harsh but not mean for its own sake either, these were people who fit my ICP and have paid for similar software in my niche for years.
I had also put up a buy button, which was extremely important, because you want to hear not just generic feedback but actual buying objections.
I've studied all 100+ comments on that Facebook post, summarized all the feedback, and reworked my entire product roadmap based on that 1 post alone!
In contrast:
Previously, during Cyber Monday, I launched Zylvie to my existing circle, and I had made a lot of revenue from them.
A few continued to use my product, but most clearly saw it as a way to support my work but had zero intention of using my product.
Of course I deeply appreciate their kind support, but I got very little actionable feedback.
Which meant that, 2 months later, I was pretty much in the same spot in my business.
If I had let that revenue get to my head and allowed myself to think, oh I got $$$ therefore my entire business model has been validated, I would be in trouble today.
Caveat: Be careful of "give the store away" feedback
This is the only type of feedback from actual paying customers that I'd caution you against.
If customers had it their way, they would want you to do/offer everything for the price of "on the house."
Be firm and set boundaries.
It's your business, run it the way you want, because only you care about the sustainability thereof.
Believe me, your customers wouldn't care about you if you folded tomorrow -- they'll just move on to your competitor.
Pour conclure
Feedback is intel.
And intel is highly-scalable.
It's the thing that you can apply once but affect millions of potential customers in the future.
If you're a good businessman, you would know that actionable business insights are worth their weight in gold.
So start thinking and acting like a good businessman, and you will actually become one in due time.
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I've found that the best feedback is pre-selling. If a product is good enough to warrant sales before its built, you know it's worth building.
I agree, but be careful of false negatives.
Just because your pre-sale wasn't successful doesn't mean the idea isn't worth pursuing.
Maybe you just don't have the audience size/reach to effectively market the pre-sale, doesn't mean the idea doesn't have legs.
That's true too. You'll want a decent waitlist / email list before you try and presell. And even if it doesn't go well, a lot of times it can yield conversations about what those people would pay money for instead
Oh yes, that can be valuable too!
I totally get the "Friends make the worst customers" saying now. When I launched my MVP, I turned to my friends for feedback, expecting some solid critiques. Instead, I received responses that seemed to prioritize protecting my feelings over providing genuine, constructive criticism of the platform. It was a bit of a wake-up call about where to get the kind of feedback that can actually help me improve.
How can you ensure that the feedback you receive is actionable?
By only showing your product to people who either are considering to buy or have already bought from you.
These people are serious and don't give non-actionable feedback.
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What an inspiring post! Feedback is truly vital for shaping a successful business from the start. With that in mind, I'm developing a simple yet powerful widget (Modalcast) designed to encourage interaction and collect feedback from your website visitors. Thank you for sharing these invaluable tips!
"which was extremely important, because you want to hear not just generic feedback but actual buying objections."
10000 x this. Feedback of potential customer is way more valuable than not-potential customer's. Sales activities towards ICP's are in my eyes the best way to get actual market feedback. Just stay humble, be open and ask questions.
Also one of the metrics I try to use especially in early phase is "Time to Learn" (not sure if there are any more used metric). Once you're learning fast about your project, the more faster you will succeed 🫶
Yup, this is why I'm increasingly convinced that the only feedback worth paying any attention to is feedback that comes from your sales/pricing page, or feedback that comes from users who are already paying you.
Also "time to learn" is a great metric, for me I just think "learning over earning" in the beginning stages.
100% agree with this!
100%, no endeavor succeeds without feedback.
In fact, I built myself a survey tool to talk to customers and get insightful feedback at a scale I couldn't manage alone. (would actually love feedback on it too haha: https://survues.netlify.app/)
Why don't you use Survues to get feedback on it? 😂
Would be a bit circular 😂
100%
Really needed to read this thanks. Slowly starting out, and it is difficult to not compare yourself to others who have vast networks to begin with. However, I guess this complements your "Friends make the worst customers".
I guess the same as all marketing is good marketing also applies to feedback.
The best way not to compare is to not see them in the first place.
Stay away from social media or at least limit it.
There's a lot of peacocking on there that's not good for your entreprenuership journey (or your mental health, for that matter), so much so that I would say it's a net negative than a net positive.
trully agree..As it helps iterate and improve, ultimately driving long-term success.
Nice post man.
I agree. Feedback is important because it allows you to know where you lack. Once you make adjustments, your revenue would automatically increase.
Yup, feedback is what brings in even more revenue.
It's a sign of long-term thinking.
Ideally you should want both feedback and revenue.
But I've seen entrepreneurs prioritize revenue over feedback, which is wrong IMO.
Powerful post.
Where can I find the right group for feedback? Launched my product 10 days ago and haven't received any input from outsiders. Could it be my marketing efforts are lacking? No feedback yet.
Where did you launch?
Product Hunt, the product is to use AI help to practice past interview questions from top companies
Jay, your perspective on prioritizing feedback over revenue in the early stages is both insightful and refreshing. It definitely reframes the approach to building a sustainable business. When soliciting feedback from your target market, how do you differentiate between the constructive criticism that should guide your roadmap and the noise that might lead you astray?
Feedback helps uncover product-market fit faster. The only way to know if you've solved a real customer problem is to get feedback from real customers.
Interesting! curious, which FB groups did you launch your app on? I'm exploring FB but struggling to find a legit group to post on
Very inspirational post!
This gives me some idea on how I should approach initial customer for my SaaS I launched last week!
Thank you for this amazing post
Talking about feedback! I'm building a tool (https://getdolphin.ai/) to help centralize, analyze and make sense of user feedback. Kinda came from doing lots of user interviews, and from having the pain point when I was talking with people and then had to find insights, themes, tags, etc. Was a mess when doing it manually on Notion...
Would love for anyone here who is keen to try it out! Is working and we can do survey responses + user call notes analysis all together in one place.
In my eyes, user feedback is the superpower post people don't take advantage of 💪.