Comment by r0s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by r0s | Hacker News Reader

I've got a real problem recruiting smart people to my ideas. Here's the issue from my point of view:

Lay people are easy to convert, you can simply answer questions intelligently. Someone with no interest or experience in the area isn't very emotionally invested either way, and can be convinced with ease.

On the other hand, those with real knowledge or experience are also easy to sway, but once you show them a glimmer of potential, credibility is on the line. The inevitable response to a good idea is a quick reactionary criticism. "Yeah that's a good idea, but it would be much better if you did X". It seems like a kind of flexing, or posturing to one-up your concept. I've encountered this several times now.

My reaction is to exhaustively answer questions and politely offer answers. This tactic seems to be met with defensive resentment, and it really sucks the excitement out of the conversation.

This is a real communication problem for me, I'd appreciate any advice.

Why are you treating what they say as a criticism? You are explaining how your ideas are level 10, and they are saying how to take it to level 11. Note that it builds on what is there, and they are excited and positive. To them it probably sounds like you are rejecting what they are saying hence the downward spiral.

A great way to counter this sort of thing is not to reject it, but to pencil it in for later. "That is interesting. Our plan is to get an MVP out the door and find market fit, and then we will be in a better position to do X." You can then discuss whatever is in common between their X and your existing stuff.

Well I could have worded that differently. Sometimes it's a good addition like you suggest, I think I handle that gracefully.

More often the response is more "The problem with that is..." which I counter with "here's the answer to that" which after a while gets frustrating, I suspect. I don't do half-baked ideas, I over-plan if anything.

There is always the possibility you are actually wrong :-) You also realise you don't have to "correct" them or get the last word in? Smile, thank them for their feedback/input and move on. And if you are so confident you are right then why even talk to these people?

If you are trying to recruit them then you are doing a sales job, and you'll likely encounter the same things when dealing with prospective customers, partners, investors etc. Sometimes people just need to think out loud, so give them enough space to do so. You may find them coming around given a little time.

Also realise they are trying to work with you. If you shut them down then they'll realise they'll just have to follow your orders (ie not a collaboration) in which case their experience has little value to you, as does the relationship to them.

That's reasonable. Thanks! I'm going to re-examine some existing relationships because of this advice.

I would put it this way. They're not responding to your ideas, they are responding to you.

A thought experiment: imagine Larry Page, or Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk is sitting across from one of these people, selling your same idea. The exact same idea, with the same words. Do you think they would respond with that quick reactionary criticism? Of course not.

I suspect you've failed to communicate first something that is much more important than the idea: why you are impressive. i.e. why it is that they should even be listening to you. You probably just figure you're being humble, when really you should spend more time talking yourself up (not in a douchey way) before talking about your idea.

I think you nailed it. I definitely under-sell my own value and abilities, I need to work on that.

Maybe people are gauging how much influence they'd have on the end product and it's not as important what you reply, as long as you demonstrate a willingness to listen to feedback, and extract the useful bits.

Yes, agreed. That's a great way to handle it.

That’s the problem, they’re just ideas. If you can build an MVP and show some traction, that will be far more effective at recruiting people.

You're assuming I didn't already, but point taken.

At least once I've gotten past MVP. I guess the decision to go public to get feedback is tricky, but if it fits the idea better that may be the next step.

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