I love this post. It's a masterclass in what to do. Yet every founder reads advice like this. every founder nods along then every founder does the exact opposite when it happens to them. I've seen this happen over and over.
I really enjoyed this post. Wrt the first tldr ("Separate the information part from the emotion part."), I've worked with soooo many people who intellectually know this is what they should do, but in practice find themselves blocked from doing it. It's wonderful to watch them unlearn those blocks: they start effortlessly following this advice!
You have to override your instincts. Even in reading critical feedback on my own posts, I feel the urge to be like “now hey wait, you don’t understand…” 😅
I understand the founder wanting to protect his team/product, but you nail the separation between facts, emotions and perceptions on the head.
Intentions don't matter that much here. It's rarely a good look for a CEO to 'hunt' customers who give feedback. As you point out, it distracts from what both sides want (a better product).
1. the whole "hate X abstract information or intenret product with a burning passion" is pretty cringingly exaggerative, self-righteous and asinine type of discourse made possible by social media.
I get why and I've done that type of response at points (maybe both publicly and on email lists), but I've been intentional about growing to not do that. I think having perspective on the difficulties, challenges, and pressures of a business beyond narrow product and technical design considerations, and just having more perspective in general and trying to see people holistically, which was one of the things that organically started and I tried to do as a result of Covid, has helped.
2. On the other hand - I do wonder how much of the quick responses is reinforced by this institutional need, including in "growthy" startup contexts, to protect one's institution and act like they're in the right and defend their legitimacy. The idea that their platform isn't perfect, or there's things they may not "know" and blind spots, to acknowledge such seems to be seen as a sign of weakness by many institutions.
It's good the Code Rabbit CEO finally had a measured response and acknowledge parts of his response that weren't constructive either. I do wonder if institutions in general, both startups and highly bureaucratic, "legacy" type institutions, and the incentives and capital structures propping them up, will ever move past the perfection pressures and sort of violent assertion of their legitimacy under any sense of a perceived threat.
Wow, that CodeRabbit response was not the right play. Most unsatisfied customers silently quit without providing feedback. CEO should have thanked the user and asked for more documentation to show their time replying was respected. Unfortunately even the apology is passive aggressive (accusing the customer of blowing up when they provided an explanation.)
As a fellow co-founder, I empathize with this CEO who felt clearly defensive and insulted. It's hard not to feel passionate. But he also needed to take a beat and give his team his room to figure it out (the first response was a decent start, why not see it play out?) and also filter his own 'outside voice'. Of course we all have moments when we want to yell expletives at someone or something - but this is not the forum to do it in. And that's pretty obvious.
And props to Daksh at Greptile for capitalizing on the opportunity...! Savage but genius.
I love this post. It's a masterclass in what to do. Yet every founder reads advice like this. every founder nods along then every founder does the exact opposite when it happens to them. I've seen this happen over and over.
It goes against every instinct!
I really enjoyed this post. Wrt the first tldr ("Separate the information part from the emotion part."), I've worked with soooo many people who intellectually know this is what they should do, but in practice find themselves blocked from doing it. It's wonderful to watch them unlearn those blocks: they start effortlessly following this advice!
You have to override your instincts. Even in reading critical feedback on my own posts, I feel the urge to be like “now hey wait, you don’t understand…” 😅
The Anna Karenina Principle is based on the novel by Tolstoy (rather than Dostoevsky) …
Having not read much Dostoevsky (but I have Anna Karenina/Tolstoy) this started to make me think which Russian was plagiarising from who...
nice catch
This is a masterclass on how to respond to negative feedback. I need to use it when I teach in my workshops too.
Thank you
I understand the founder wanting to protect his team/product, but you nail the separation between facts, emotions and perceptions on the head.
Intentions don't matter that much here. It's rarely a good look for a CEO to 'hunt' customers who give feedback. As you point out, it distracts from what both sides want (a better product).
A few thoughts:
1. the whole "hate X abstract information or intenret product with a burning passion" is pretty cringingly exaggerative, self-righteous and asinine type of discourse made possible by social media.
I get why and I've done that type of response at points (maybe both publicly and on email lists), but I've been intentional about growing to not do that. I think having perspective on the difficulties, challenges, and pressures of a business beyond narrow product and technical design considerations, and just having more perspective in general and trying to see people holistically, which was one of the things that organically started and I tried to do as a result of Covid, has helped.
2. On the other hand - I do wonder how much of the quick responses is reinforced by this institutional need, including in "growthy" startup contexts, to protect one's institution and act like they're in the right and defend their legitimacy. The idea that their platform isn't perfect, or there's things they may not "know" and blind spots, to acknowledge such seems to be seen as a sign of weakness by many institutions.
It's good the Code Rabbit CEO finally had a measured response and acknowledge parts of his response that weren't constructive either. I do wonder if institutions in general, both startups and highly bureaucratic, "legacy" type institutions, and the incentives and capital structures propping them up, will ever move past the perfection pressures and sort of violent assertion of their legitimacy under any sense of a perceived threat.
So good
Wow, that CodeRabbit response was not the right play. Most unsatisfied customers silently quit without providing feedback. CEO should have thanked the user and asked for more documentation to show their time replying was respected. Unfortunately even the apology is passive aggressive (accusing the customer of blowing up when they provided an explanation.)
As a fellow co-founder, I empathize with this CEO who felt clearly defensive and insulted. It's hard not to feel passionate. But he also needed to take a beat and give his team his room to figure it out (the first response was a decent start, why not see it play out?) and also filter his own 'outside voice'. Of course we all have moments when we want to yell expletives at someone or something - but this is not the forum to do it in. And that's pretty obvious.
And props to Daksh at Greptile for capitalizing on the opportunity...! Savage but genius.
Excellent