It really is a blessing to have someone to tear apart ideas. I used to run an entrepreneur group in Colorado for a few years and we’d have pitch nights and people were always supportive even if the idea was bad. We started realizing that people would then spent time and money on a shit idea and couldn’t figure out why it failed so we changed our pitch night feedback time to require the audience to provide negative feedback or criticize the business model, etc.
It worked great. The few really great ideas had some negative feedback but it was something that could be overcome. The crap ideas got flushed pretty quickly and people were appreciative for having people validate or invalidate their ideas before they sank time into them.
Now that said. I would suggest you ask your wife to the idea and ask her for negative feedback. “Why is this idea bad?” Take lots of notes and after she is done ask her what is good about the idea. Again take notes.
By giving her permission you are taking the sting out of it and also removing her stress of trying to be nice and critical at the same time.
This way you are asking for negative feedback, which is the best kind imho, and your wife has permission to be critical. If she is just trolling ie “it’s stupid…. You can’t do it…etc” then stop asking her advice and find others to validate your idea and maybe look into some marriage counseling.
It really is a blessing to have someone to tear apart ideas. I used to run an entrepreneur group in Colorado for a few years and we’d have pitch nights and people were always supportive even if the idea was bad. We started realizing that people would then spent time and money on a shit idea and couldn’t figure out why it failed so we changed our pitch night feedback time to require the audience to provide negative feedback or criticize the business model, etc.
It worked great. The few really great ideas had some negative feedback but it was something that could be overcome. The crap ideas got flushed pretty quickly and people were appreciative for having people validate or invalidate their ideas before they sank time into them.
Now that said. I would suggest you ask your wife to the idea and ask her for negative feedback. “Why is this idea bad?” Take lots of notes and after she is done ask her what is good about the idea. Again take notes.
By giving her permission you are taking the sting out of it and also removing her stress of trying to be nice and critical at the same time.
This way you are asking for negative feedback, which is the best kind imho, and your wife has permission to be critical. If she is just trolling ie “it’s stupid…. You can’t do it…etc” then stop asking her advice and find others to validate your idea and maybe look into some marriage counseling.