Your business idea sucks, and it's your job to figure out why

The problem with "asking for the brutal truth" is that no one knows what it is.

At least in terms new markets and new products, you are facing the unknown. You can't work it out in your head; you can't find the right person to tell you if it's right or it's wrong. You just have to try it.

Don't be fooled when confident VCs and angels act like they know; they don't. They're just guessing (that's their job).

Far better to encourage an experimental approach: to be encouraged to try things and to be encouraged when it doesn't work. Because courage is what you need to face the unknown.

It is useful to be exposed to many perspectives, for new ways to think about things. It's useful to learn facts about the space you're in (doing your best to distinguish between fact and opinion). It's useful to discuss ideas, possible problems and opportunities - but not in terms of judging your idea, but in terms of seeing what's there.

With knowledge and experience of reality, you will develop your own sense of what will work. You still won't know, of course; but you'll be more confident of trying it.

I hope that at least some people see this as a genuine post -- it was inspired from a true event that happened just a week and a half ago. I don't have facts to back up a lot of what I say, but basic experience in getting business feedback will make it quite clear what I mean.

I would like to start a service where you can receive unbiased criticism on demand because in my experience it is almost impossible to get. the incentive in such a business (counselors, psychology) is to tell your client what they want to hear. Even when they want to hear criticism, they want to hear the criticism that they want to hear. Thus an actual honest service would be valuable.

I fear the market is too small though.

Fluff.

Can someone explain why we're taking business advice from a college kid who's working on an embryonic startup, and other than that has only worked in internships? The red flag here is that the post does not relate any relevant business experiences and has a linkbait title. Here are some others that exhibit identical traits:

* http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=641

* http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=560

* http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=417

* http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=406

My personal favorite: http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=372

Hiring advice from someone who's never hired!

Maybe instead of spending time burning the midnight oil for my small business, I should post linkbait and get the red carpet treatment like this "entrepreneur" has.

Edit: It's also pretty lame to submit your own blog posts.