Week 3: Feedback Fatigue
This post is the third in a series titled “The Chronicles of 500: Weekly Essays on What I Learned from 500 Startups.” Andy is currently the CEO at LaunchGram.
I ask all of our users and everybody I meet for feedback.
Having started 500 Startups three weeks ago, I’ve been talking to brilliant past and present founders about our product.
I’ve been getting a lot of feedback.
Design feedback, UX feedback, business model feedback, marketing strategy feedback, you name it, I’ve been getting it lately.
A lot of it has been from really smart people that I look up to. A lot of it has been insightful, well thought out feedback. A lot of it has been really terrible feedback that is uninformed.
As CEO, it is my job to swallow my pride and defer to users and experts’ insights, but it is also to trust my gut, defy the experts, and press on.
This can lead to feedback fatigue, which is when you feel that feedback stops being useful and becomes a distraction.
But feedback fatigue is good; it means you’re getting a healthy amount of feedback.
The key is that while you don’t have to take everybody’s advice, you do need to listen to as much of it as possible.
This will be exhausting and it will be obnoxious, but it will also be one of the most beneficial things you do for the growth of your product and business.
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Andy Sparks 
