Cut Me, Mick

The best way to learn to duck is to get punched in the face.

I thought that up while driving around. In fact, most of my little sayings come while I am driving around, and a few of them stick in my brain and become blog posts.

The latest one?

It’s hard to see with blood in your eyes.

There is a lot of talk about how hard (or easy) it is to be a CEO, which is a bit frustrating given that “CEO” is a job function and most founders eventually make horrible CEOs. But, lets leave that discussion for another day.

Great founders tend to be single minded in their focus, which is a huge asset. But, they also tend to be highly optimistic and egotistical. Those three things: focus, optimism and ego create a perfect storm of reaction during the funding and growth stage of the business.

Unless you are highly successful and are able to quickly match the right investor with your idea+traction+market, you will probably meet with dozens of potential investors and firms. Each time you meet with one, they will provide some sort of advice that you will spend a lot of time thinking about.

Same with early customers, friends and advisors. If you look at each piece of advice as a punch to the face, you will soon become so blinded by the ever changing and conflicting feedback, that soon you are swinging blindly with the hope of connecting.

Is all advice bad? Nope. In fact, much of it is good. Its just the sheer volume of feedback makes it nearly impossible to pick out the good stuff, especially because the default becomes tying the value of the feedback to the level of reputation of the provider. This, by the way, the single, biggest fallacy that is perpetrated in startup land. Just because someone is speaking at some conference or in some tech blog doesn’t mean their advice is better than someone you have never heard of.

Here is where a trusted advisor or coach earns their equity. They see that you are struggling with the quantity of feedback, and can slow you down and help you parse advice until the good stuff is all that is left.

It’s like when Rocky asked Mick to cut open his eyelid so he could see Apollo Creed in the movie, Rocky.

If you didn’t see the movie, here is a reenactment of the scene. Its pretty close to exactly how it happened.

“Cut me, Mick.”

Ask yourself if you are looking to implement feature changes or business model adjustments because they are the right thing to do, or because they are in response to (potential) investors, (early) customers, (big) names or (good) friends.

Ask yourself if you are looking to pivot or develop new features or products because you feel it’s the right move for the business, or because “everyone” is telling you its the right move.

It’s ok to have blood in your eyes. It happens to all of us at some point. The question is are you willing to do whats necessary to clear your vision?

“Cut me, Mick.”