The Goldfish and The Elephant

Memories are created when you’re naked.

That’s a hilarious name for a memoir and maybe my favorite opening line for a post ever, but it’s also true. When you put yourself out there and get feedback, you tend to remember that feedback disproportionately.

Startups, especially early, require founders to constantly expose themselves — to take uncomfortable “risks” that might work and might not and have the potential to trigger feedback intense enough to discourage them or push them to quit entirely.

And, importantly, your subconscious is always looking for an excuse to say, “See! SEE! This is why you shouldn’t have done this shit! Now get back to Deloitte and stop with this startup nonsense.” Our DNA doesn’t want us to stray from the herd. And startups are straying from the herd.

So, to be a successful founder, you’ll need to regulate your memory.

Types of Memories

There are two types of memories required for founders: Goldfish Memory and Elephant Memory.

They’re probably self-explanatory, but I’ll toss out a reference to drill each home because it’s snowing for the first time this year and that always puts a little pep in my step.

My second favorite lesson from my favorite show of the past 10 years explains Goldfish Memory — be a goldfish (here’s my favorite lesson from the show). And a very obscure quote from the Jungle Book just sort of says what Elephant Memory is: an elephant never forgets.

The trick with startups is figuring out when you’re supposed to be a goldfish and when you’re supposed to be an elephant.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you send out 100 cold emails to potential customers for an intent test or concierge MVP and get five responses. Four of those responses say, “Please take me off this list” and one says something more aggressive: “How dare you send me a cold email, I didn’t sign up for this list and have no interest — don’t add my email to another list, or I’ll contact my lawyers. Who the hell do you think you are!?” Which memory do we use?

I’ve seen this type of response end dozens of extremely talented entrepreneurs’ careers. Those three words, “How dare you!?” are stored in their elephant memory forever. And if you think that email is exaggerated, it’s not. That’s a direct quote, and if you work on a startup, you'll eventually get some flavor of this response, even if you don’t deserve it. If you reach out to 1,000 people you’re genuinely trying to help, at least one is going to react like an asshole. It’s just math. Some percentage of humans stink.

But, completely ignoring any responses and just sending out 1,000 more identical cold emails because you think you’re supposed to be a goldfish isn’t right, either. The goal isn’t to forget negative feedback altogether — it’s to make sure you’re processing it usefully and proportionally.

Startup feedback comes in two flavors: extremes and indifference.

When you get feedback, ask: What’s useful about the extremes, and what’s useful about the indifference? For extremes, you had one person very angry out of 100. Check to see if there’s anything specific in that anger — that’ll be the thing that’s useful — and test it against a bunch of other customers. One opinion out of 100 isn’t remotely representative and probably isn’t relevant, but it's worth checking.

So, if they said, “I’d never work with a company that has X on their website,” run some interviews with customers and bring that up. See if it matters. If it's just an email angry about you reaching out, clock it, but only act if you get 20 more of those. Same thing with the extreme positive feedback. If someone loves something, your job is to find 20 more people who love the exact same thing. If you can, then it’s a start on a potential first customer.

The indifference — the 95 people who didn’t respond — is powerful feedback, too. Likely more powerful than the loud feedback because it’s a bigger percentage of people. So, we need more specific follow-up emails to try and be more helpful. Or, a new customer to try.

Be an elephant about earned wisdom — retain insights from patterns, processes, or repeated feedback — even (especially) if it’s subtle. Be a goldfish about emotionally charged but statistically insignificant feedback, like a single angry email or a VC you pitched unsubscribing from your newsletter.

A great way to practice this is through journaling. At the end of each day, answer a prompt: What gave me an emotional reaction today? What's sitting in the pit of my stomach? Then, practice placing it into one of the two memory banks. Remind yourself whenever it resurfaces which it belongs in. You'll usually have to remind yourself to be a goldfish, over and over.

Recognize when your subconscious is flailing around trying to find evidence that this “risky” path your own should come to an end.

And realize that the whole point is to get naked. That's when the good stuff happens. So don't let random feedback keep you from it.