Don’t Get Grinfucked by Your Users

grin
Bart Lorang

Author: Bart Lorang

@bartlorang

I woke up this morning and I couldn’t stop thinking about how evil “sugar coated” feedback is when trying to build great software – especially from end users. It drives me crazy when I know someone is holding something back.

Sugarcoat

Coincidentally, a few minutes later, I read Brad Feld’s post on grinfucking and Mark Suster’s Don’t be a Grin Fucker.

Both posts are spot on. Our team met one-on-one with Suster for 15 minutes during TechStars Boulder 2011 and we really appreciated his candor. He gave us some honest, direct feedback that rattled around in my brain for the next few weeks. Now, that piece of feedback is an important part of our current strategy.

Part of the magic of TechStars is its “no bullshit” culture based on brutal feedback and intellectual honesty. David Cohen has done a great job instilling these principles into every TechStars founder, employee and mentor.

Unfortunately TechStars ended, and we had to rejoin the human race. Now, I find myself encountering way too much “sugar coating” – but now I think I prefer the term grinfucking.

I tend to meet with lots of people every day, in person, on the phone or via email. I encourage entrepreneurs to Tungle Me if they want a quick 15 minute mentorship session. I find that helping others with their problems serves as a sort of ‘mental gymnastics’ and keeps me ready to solve the most difficult challenges at my own company.

No matter who I meet with, at the end of the meeting I usually show the other person what I’m doing. It used to be our website. Then our API. Now it’s our new iOS app that we are currently iterating on.

I’m finding that a most people naturally try to grinfuck me by being polite about our software. I literally have to draw their feedback out by saying:

I’m going to watch you use our iOS App and take notes. Tell me exactly what you’re thinking as you install it and use it for the first time. I’m not going to say a word.

Usually, this is followed by some hesitation and I have to reassure them by saying:

You can’t hurt my feelings. I went through TechStars – we CRAVE brutal honesty. I’ll get upset if you sugarcoat anything. Hit me!

If they’re still hesitant, I usually remind them that I just gave them brutally honest feedback in some way, shape or form, and they should repay the favor. This usually does the trick.

What transpires next is magical.

Watching a stranger use your app for the first time is always incredibly humbling. But if you can get them to provide a stream-of-consciousness commentary while doing it? It can blow your mind and open your eyes. Usability issues scream out and are inherently obvious. Features that the entire company (including myself) thought were smart end up being dumb features and vice versa.

If you do this over and over, you’ll collect enough feedback to have some real, actionable data.

If you’re not ready for it, the process can hurt your feelings. But there’s no crying in baseball. And I guarantee the process will make your product better. After enough iterations, the feedback focuses on smaller details. That means your product is getting better. You’re making progress.

In short, don’t let users grinfuck you. As Steve Blank espouses, get out of your own building and make sure you get honest feedback about your product.

Have you got feedback for us about our iOS App? Download it, and email me your honest thoughts, good or bad. It’s just data to me and won’t hurt my feelings.

Just don’t be a grinfucker.

  • http://hdemott.wordpress.com Harry DeMott

    Strangely, I find I have no problem criticizing software. If it is not working for me – then I’m usually able to pinpoint why, and usually there is a good reason for the decisions that have been made. I, like most – have a tougher time when it comes to personal stuff. How often do you want to tell a founder that in your opinion he really needs to get a CEO (he’s the man isn’t he) or that his board has given him bad advice on a funding. Anything that can be construed as a personal attack is always the most delicate conversations and yet those are often the most important ones. I applaud Tim Westegren who founded Pandora for taking the advice of his initial investors and bringing on a professional CEO in Joe Kennedy. Tim became Mr. outside and Joe Mr. Inside – and they have had great success.

    • http://fullcontact.com/ Bart Lorang

      That’s interesting Harry. I’ve found a number of people hesitant to criticize software if they know you’re involved in its creation (probably because they think you’ll construe it as a personal attack) And some people just say nothing if they can’t say something nice. The key is to get people to really open up and have at it.

  • Luka

    Please fix “new iOS app” URL.

    • http://fullcontact.com/ Bart Lorang

      yikes! fixed. thanks!

  • Mschayna

    Tester must be able to tell developer that his child is ugly. Maybe this rule is not working when there are no testers, in that case the developer should “amplify signals” from users in his/her head.

  • http://twitter.com/Le_isms Le Zhang

    Great point Bart, we’ve (MyReci) been using the whole interview & stream-of-consciousness without realizing it, and it’s cool to get some validation. What I would like to know is if there is a way to solicit the quality of an interview with the automation of a feedback button –that is, can we motivate users to not only send feedback, but to send brutal feedback.

  • Davidfpearson

    Sugar coating negative feedback is the human races’ way of encoding a respectful wrapper to a statement and securing, as best it can, continued communication after the event.

    Making a negative comment palletable is an art. Acquired over time and tuned with wisdom, it’s delivery can be as precise and telling as any “straight talking” equivalent. Equally, the recipient of the comment must know how to decode its meaning to take full advantage of it’s information. If the recipient cannot decode the intent then the meaning is lost but communication is still open.

    Receiving a negative comment without “sugar coating”, requires that the recipient must add a level of “sugar coating” to placate the need of the “respectful layer” of the human psyche. This is the inverse of the above fore mentioned ability to decode. Without it, the message content is delivered but communication discontinued after the event. If the recipient CAN add this layer then it makes for a fast and efficient delivery of information with the guarantee of continued communication. If not, the. You have lost an allie

    • RealityCheckGal

      I think I need a decoder for this aforementioned comment.

  • http://twitter.com/athletesaudio Bob K

    Hi Bart, this whole post just makes me smile. I’d not heard the term before, and I think I’ve sent this link to about 30 people in my organization. Priceless. If this is the kind of REAL stuff that you post, I wonder what one of your 15 minute mentorship sessions are like. What do you charge for that? I’m completely game to get (whatever the opposite of Grinfucked is)…

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/PQ233RIPVPJ6QJQGA62OACR6GQ Cirstoiu

    Have you ever considered telling the reviewer that they’re evaluating your competition’s product instead of your own?

  • Clare Bear

    Great post. Every now and then when I give genuinely positive feedback to founders, I’m met with a skeptical face. This reminds me why. ;)

  • http://armut.com/ Basak

    Great post – thanks for sharing : ) Do you probe for commentary while they use the product?

  • http://twitter.com/MarkHall123 Mark Hall

    Bart, thanks for another great post. I appreciate the straight-shooting perspective. As startup founders, we often forget to keep drilling for the real feedback from our users as opposed to settling for the initial complimentary feedback that we often receive.

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