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Comment by rollypolly | Hacker News Reader

  4. Surround yourself with friends who will remind you
  you’re awesome when you need it & shit on you when it’s
  time.

I hate it when my friends go out of their way to say nice things about my work. They do that because they know much effort I put into my work, and they don't want to make me feel bad.

But this is counter-productive. You're not helping me if you don't point out what can be improved!

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Exactly. Recently I asked a friend to check out a site I just uploaded, he sent me some nice compliments. Later I realized that on IE (which he uses) the layout was all off.

I need to find some meaner friends.

in my experience, most ppl even friends won't give much of a damn about your site, and will just casually play around with it and say 'that's nice'.

however, a stranger that needs your site will give you a bunch of gems.

You need honest friends. I looked at a little iOS game a friend of mine was doing. I told him what I like about it. I also told him everything I thought was wrong about it. He was asking me for honest feedback so I gave it.

I didn't have to be mean about it, just clear and straight forward. "I don't like the way this works because ..." "I don't like the way this looks because ..."

Real feedback is much more helpful.

Once I had a friend check out my site. However, he spelled it wrong and went to a domain parking page. He had just said, "oh it looks nice," before I cut him off and told him the right spelling! :D

I, actually agree with the author. I am based in a city where entrepreneurship is not the common thing. My friends from that city told me many a times that I'd fail.

Its painful. You need support on some days. And surrounding yourself with people who provide positive energy is such a great thing.

Your friends perhaps see the potential of your work and not its current state? :-)

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