In this journal‑style episode of The Crazy Ones, Alex Lieberman recounts a private Twitter exchange with a venture capitalist who bluntly told him his new project, The Plunge, was a waste of time. Rather than simply vent, Alex uses the story to outline four actionable strategies for dealing with harsh criticism that entrepreneurs inevitably face. First, he stresses the importance of recognizing and managing the surge of emotions that such feedback provokes, preventing defensive shutdown. Second, he advises listeners to sift through the criticism to locate any nuggets of truth that can improve their business, using the VC’s comments about unit economics as an example. Third, he highlights the need to give critics the necessary context about one’s values, goals, and business model so they can provide more informed feedback, illustrated by his experience with Mark Cuban. Finally, Alex discusses turning external criticism into a source of motivation—balancing extrinsic “chip‑on‑the‑shoulder” drive with intrinsic purpose. Throughout, he invites listeners to submit their own challenges for future episodes.
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What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of The Crazy Ones. This is Alex here, and I'm coming back with a journal-style episode. People have been loving this shorter format that focuses on specific challenges and problems within building a business. And so before we hop into it, shoot us an email at thecrazyones@morningbrew.com and respond with one very acute challenge or priority that you are dealing with in your business or your company right now that that you would like to hear us talk about on an upcoming journal-style episode. I want to read part of a private Twitter conversation that I had with a VC yesterday. I'm not going to say their name, but I'm going to share some of the content of the exchange. This person said, and I quote, plunger game. Why is that how you want to spend your time? Unsolicited feedback. You have the time and the money to do whatever you want at this point. If you want to run an e-com business, buy one that has demand already. Hack this on maybe as a product if it fits. But in my humble opinion, you're going to wake up in 18 months and be like, why am I spending my time on this? This is just the first part of what was a lengthy exchange with this individual about The Plunge, them sharing why they think I'm wasting my time on it and me responding to their feedback. Let me start by saying this message Didn't feel good. It never feels good to have someone tell you that you're wasting your time and your idea sucks. I actually think the wasting your time part burns more than the bad idea part for me. But my purpose for sharing the story isn't to blow up this VC or say that what they did was wrong. I do think they were genuinely trying to help me out and be the quote unquote bad guy who tells it as it is when everyone is just patting me on the back. Which, by the way, I think there's value in this because the most annoying thing in the early days of Morning Brew was having family tell Austin and I that the product was perfect and we didn't have to make any changes. But anyway, the purpose of this episode is to share strategies for productively handling the moments where people will inevitably— I guarantee it— shit on your business ideas. People shit on Morning Brew when we were starting it. People now shit on The Plunge, and people will inevitably shit on every business that I build in the future. So when that happens, what do I do about it? That's what I want to share with you on this episode. What's up, everyone? I'm Alex Lieberman. Yo, this is Jesse Pujji. And this is The Crazy Ones. The first thing that I do is acknowledge that the experience of having your idea criticized will be provoking. to me, and it will cause me to have heightened emotions. There's nothing wrong with feeling your heart pump faster or anger fill you when someone delivers tough love or harsh feedback. It's a natural defense mechanism that we all have. But having awareness of these feelings and the impact that they can have on you is so incredibly crucial. Your default mode will be to shut down, to get defensive, and to tune out what the other person says. It's how your body protects you from pain. But there's 2 issues with this response. First, it prevents you from gaining nuggets of wisdom that are hidden in what the person says. Even if you don't agree with 95% of it, why not find the 5% of truth that you can use to improve your chances of success on your business? And second, it prevents you from getting feedback from them in the future because defensiveness creates a lack of psychological safety that makes people less likely to express themselves to you from that point on. So that's the first. Acknowledge that you will have emotions, understand how your body will react to those emotions, and take control of them so you don't face the issues that are inevitably caused by them. Second thing to do when people shit on your idea is to find the helpful truth. This builds off of the first, but if you're going to take the time to engage with someone, to get their feedback and to hear them out, at least try to find truth and value in what they say. There is value in even the harshest feedback or the most uninformed perspective. I'll just give you an example from this exchange that I had with the VC about The Plunge. At one point, after I shared what motivates me and what my values are and why that aligns with building The Plunge, this person said, quote, I just think you're missing one piece— challenging yourself. While I do feel challenged in several ways right now, including building a physical product, creating a brand through content to market the game I'm building, supporting and training an operator who's going to end up taking over this business, running Facebook ads for the first time, because in the early days of Morning Brew, I wasn't the one running our Facebook ads. I took this as a good reminder for me to continue to ask myself how I am being challenged and to make sure that I am pushing myself intellectually constantly. This VC also said that they believe it will be, quote, impossible for the business to be profitable due to, quote, demand, price point, shipping costs, and cost of goods sold. Now, while I don't agree, I use that part of our conversation as a reminder that we need to be ruthless about our unit economics and getting our landed cost of this game, meaning the cost of the game landed in the United States from where we manufacture it abroad, getting it low enough that we have more than enough room to account for marketing costs and over overhead costs related to the business. So that's lesson number 2. Find valuable truth no matter how harsh or unreasonable the feedback. Third thing to do when people shit on your idea: help them help you. No one knows your business as well as you. No one has thought about your business as much as you. Feedback or criticism is only as valuable as the person giving it is informed about your business, your goals, your values, and your strategy. When I emailed Mark Cuban about Morning Brew in our first year of business and he said, quote, first thing is that it seems like it's like any other business newsletter. What makes it unique to students? End quote. The most helpful next thing I could have done was to make Mark understand this audience and how they currently consume content and their issues with what's currently out there. Mark isn't in that demographic. He hasn't thought about the problem. How could we expect him to give valuable feedback without having that information? The same thing goes for my conversation with the VC. When this person told me I was wasting time working on The Plunge, my first thought was, how does this person know I'm wasting my time without knowing what my values are, what my goals are, and what makes me happy? Without knowing those things, it's impossible to have an informed perspective on how someone is spending their time. So I shared with this person what makes me happy is building with my bare hands, creating community, sharing my learnings and being playful. So that's the third lesson. Always help the person giving feedback help you by immersing them in the context of your business and your decision-making. The fourth and final thing to do when people shit on your idea is use it as healthy motivation. Having a chip on your shoulder can be helpful in small doses. It's a powerful motivator, but if not kept in check, it can be a temporary form of motivation. And it's a form of motivation that is extrinsically driven by others and others' perception of you or your business. Versus being motivated intrinsically by things like a love for learning, a love for growth, service of others, etc. Now, I do think we all have some combination of intrinsic and extrinsic that motivate us. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever have a chip on your shoulder. I don't think that's realistic. And that convo with the VC about the plunge absolutely put a chip on my shoulder. You just want to make sure you maintain the right mix of short-term and long-term motivation so you're not serving the motivation, but instead the motivation is serving you. And so that is my experience getting shit on yesterday for the plunge and the 4 things that I try to do and remind myself of to make the most of those situations. As I mentioned earlier, I would love to get inspiration for future journal-style episodes of The Crazy Ones. So shoot us an email at thecrazyones@morningbrew.com and respond with what is one problem or one priority that is taking up The vast majority of brain space right now as it relates to building your business. The crazy ones at morningbrew.com, we want to talk about the things that are most valuable and interesting to you. As always, thank you for listening, and I'll catch you next episode.
