The Kool-Aid Test or "I have a friend....."

“That’s Awesome”

If you are diving into a start up, those can be pretty scary words.  Sound weird? Read on.

I’ve been thinking about feedback a lot these days and how many of people come into my office with “everybody loves it” as the core feedback to the idea they want to present.  I started worrying that maybe we, as VCs, sometimes go overboard in giving negative feedback.

While at Gnomedex 6.0 and Robert Scoble’s buh bye party last week, I tried an interesting experiment.

First, consider this new “idea”:

A new device that can automatically determine if your microwave can make popcorn and at what setting. What you do is scan the popcorn bar code with this device. Once you get a green light, you put the device in your microwave on high for 3 second.  The device will automatically display a time that is custom for your microwave and the bag of popcorn you just scanned.

Stupid, right? You can think of a million ways to ‘solve’ this problem, not the least of which is just stand by the microwave and wait until the kernels stop popping while watching the timer.

For the first group of people, I said basically this:

While working on my electronics research, I came across an interesting way to make sure popcorn gets done right as I hate burnt popcorn… Insert above story… what do you think? I need some honest feedback.

I divided this story telling into people I knew and ones I’d never met before.  What was interesting (and probably not surprising) is that when I claimed this idea as my own, the worst feedback I got was “a bit narrow of a solution, don’t you think”.  Virtually everybody wanted to come up with ideas on getting the microwave oven and popcorn folks to sell or include my pop-rite device. Most struggled and wanted to change the subject, only one person said “kinda goofy” and I knew them.

For the next group of people, I went with this version:

So, I have a guy pitching me the following. He is a electronics wiz… Insert above story… what do you think? I need some honest feedback to pass on.

Same thing. Divided this up into people I knew and didn’t know.  The feedback was brutal. Ranging from wow must be a smart electronics guy to get that to work inside a microwave all the way to, did all the stupid people have a convention in Toronto?

Same idea, same basic pitch, same request.  The difference being that I set up an environment where it wasn’t personal and the feedback could flow without the perceived or real fear of offending me. It didn’t matter if these were friends or people I had never met before.

The lesson for you is simple but often overlooked.  Most people will not trash you or your ideas no matter how hard you press for honest feedback.  It is really tough to get. Running around and getting “trusted” people saying, cool or that’s awesome may not be useful.

You should try this experiment with your own ideas/plans.  Next time you want some feedback on an idea, try this type of approach:

I have a friend who pitched this, what do you think.

Somebody suggested we do X, what do you think.

See if you get the same, that’s awesome, commentary when it isn’t you rather a friend or a somebody.  You might get some feedback that ordinarily won’t show up until the VC bad boys step up to the plate. 

At worst, this method might get you better prepared for the skeptics with the checkbooks. At best, you might get killer feedback that takes the plan to the next level.

Comments

[john dodds]

It's astonishing and dismaying that people fear to speak the truth in these situations, but you're absolutely right about the psychology. The one caveat I would add, however, is that just as you need to search out genuine feedback (and I'm all about the negative), it's crucial to know that a minority positive feedback can be more powerful than the majority negative feedback. http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/04/im-passionate-so-why-are-you-offering.html

[Jeff Osborne]

Great post. Sounds like a fun experiment. Reminds me of the Johari window, a tool that's been mostly promoted by self-help and interpersonal dynamics training groups; but something that seems to have broader use in guiding the types of plan and product development described in Naked Conversations, or Innovation Happens Elsewhere. Wikipedia for more on Johari window: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window