> Don't ask people what they think about your idea. They'll either be supportive or mean to you. None of these are about your idea.
While I agree that some people will be blindly supportive or mean (or will lie as another comment pointed out), it sounds to me that you might be asking the wrong people or you might be allowing ego to taint your perception of their responses.
In my experience, there are plenty of thoughtful, analytical people out there who can help you explore aspects of your idea you might not have considered. Those people, however, will likely only give you their honest assessment if you already have a relationship with them. For me, having a small network of thoughtful individuals that I trust (friends, family, etc) is essential.
In addition, you have to be able to separate your ego from the idea so that you can view criticism of it in an objective way, rather than as simply “mean” (which it might be, but might also contain grains of truth).
This is, of course, no substitute for feedback from actual customers/users, though I would argue that, in the early stages of exploring an idea, it is equally necessary.
While I agree that some people will be blindly supportive or mean (or will lie as another comment pointed out), it sounds to me that you might be asking the wrong people or you might be allowing ego to taint your perception of their responses.
In my experience, there are plenty of thoughtful, analytical people out there who can help you explore aspects of your idea you might not have considered. Those people, however, will likely only give you their honest assessment if you already have a relationship with them. For me, having a small network of thoughtful individuals that I trust (friends, family, etc) is essential.
In addition, you have to be able to separate your ego from the idea so that you can view criticism of it in an objective way, rather than as simply “mean” (which it might be, but might also contain grains of truth).
This is, of course, no substitute for feedback from actual customers/users, though I would argue that, in the early stages of exploring an idea, it is equally necessary.