Founders, Are You Listening to the Feedback—or the VC Logo?

My Dear Xxxxx,

I wanted to share an observation from the Xxxxxxxxxx VC conversation—not about the email itself, but about something more important: how we process feedback as founders.

About three months ago, I shared a fairly specific view with you: before going aggressively to VCs, we needed to demonstrate that payments work, customers are willing to pay, retention is real, and traction is growing consistently—ideally week-on-week, or at least month-on-month. Once those signals become visible, fundraising becomes much easier, and I can make introductions with much greater conviction.

Now Xxxxxxxxxx VC, has essentially come back with the same questions: Will users continue returning after the initial curiosity? Will they pay? Can you demonstrate repeatable acquisition? And ultimately, is there a durable business and competitive advantage here?

What interests me is not that my earlier view turned out to be similar to Xxxxxxxxxx’s;  there is a much bigger lesson here. 

When feedback comes from someone close to the company—a co-founder or a mentor — it can gradually become “advice.” Because we hear from them regularly, familiarity can unconsciously reduce the weight we give their opinion.

However, when the exact same feedback comes from a famous VC brand, even through a relatively junior member of their team, suddenly it can feel like an important external insight.

That is a very human psychological bias. All of us are susceptible to it.

There is another subtle trap here. Getting a thoughtful response from Xxxxxxxxxx can feel like progress. The personalized comments can even make a rejection feel validating: “A major VC has spent time thinking about us, and they see something interesting.”

There may indeed be something encouraging in that. But we should distinguish between fundraising activity and company progress.

Talking to Xxxxxxxxxx VC is fundraising activity.

Improving retention, getting customers to pay, establishing repeatable acquisition and demonstrating sustained growth—that is progress.

The Xxxxxxxxxx VC email is therefore valuable not because a VC said it, but because it gives us another independent data point pointing toward the same underlying issues.

This is where I think a strong founder mindset becomes extremely important.

Great founders don’t have to agree with every piece of advice they receive. In fact, they shouldn’t. Investors and even mentors have been proven wrong many times.

But great founders should be extremely good at updating their beliefs when independent evidence begins accumulating.

Think about it almost Bayesian-ly.

One person saying something may be an opinion.

A second independent source identifying essentially the same issue makes it a stronger signal.

When multiple investors, customers or advisers independently identify the same problem, we should stop debating and start testing the hypothesis.

So rather than asking:

“Was Suresh right?”

or

“Is Xxxxxxxxxx right?”

the useful question is:

“What is reality trying to tell us, and what are we going to change because of it?”

I would like you to develop this as a discipline as a founder

For important feedback, capture:

Feedback → Source → How many independent times we have heard it → Evidence for/against it → Action/experiment → Result.

Two independent repetitions should make us investigate seriously. Three independent repetitions should be very difficult to ignore without strong contrary evidence.

And there is one more thing I would encourage you to develop as a founder: update velocity.

Being a great founder doesn’t mean being infallible or always having the correct original thesis. That’s impossible.

The real superpower is:

How quickly do I recognize that reality is giving me new information, update my mental model, and convert that learning into action?

That is ultimately what I would take away from the Xxxxxxxxxx VC email.

Don’t be overly encouraged by the brand name, and don’t be discouraged by what is essentially a nicely worded polite rejection, either.

Use it as evidence.

The most productive response to Xxxxxxxxxx VC is not a better explanation of what you are building. It is to change the underlying facts so that few weeks / months from now the conversation is different:

“We proved people come back.”

“We proved they pay.”

“We proved we can acquire them repeatedly.”

“We proved this is more than an interesting try-on feature.”

“We proved there is a durable business here.”

At that point, we won’t need to persuade investors nearly as much. The numbers will do a large part of the persuasion for us.

That’s the larger lesson I hope we take from this.