The question posed by many a budding entrepreneur in the face of what often seems like an unending string of rejections or setbacks is “how do I know when to accept that my idea is not viable and move on to the next one?”. Entrepreneurs often ask this question because they have been fed two conflicting sets of messages over the years.
 
On the one hand you have probably been told all your life never to give up. Advice of this variety is typically worded as “entrepreneurs never accept no for an answer”. On the other hand, you receive many messages to the contrary, directly or indirectly advising you not to waste your life on an idea that is not viable. You can find these messages in the many different articles that try to explain how to assess your business idea. They often advise something along the lines of “If no one seems to see any value in your concept but you, you are probably not on to a winner”. Sound advice no? I guess so, but if I may digress just a little, I’d much prefer if such advice were phrased as “If you have sought the opinions of a significant number of people who should see the value of your concept and they don’t then…”.
 
Ok, back to those discouraging messages. They can often also be contained in the very rejections that cause entrepreneurs to wonder whether to quit. As if it weren’t bad enough to be rejected, the person issuing the rejection, be it a potential investor, partner or customer, will often rub salt into the wounds of the entrepreneur by offering unsolicited advice such as “quite frankly, I would be surprised if you found anyone to give you what you are after”. Ok, but I didn’t (insert random swear word) ask you, is what the entrepreneur feels like saying back but usually doesn’t.
 
I found a couple of blog posts on the same site that exemplify my point about conflicting messages and believe it or not, the posts follow each other on the same blog. Nasheim Online’s post “UNSHAKABLE: Startup CEOs just keep on ticking” is immediately followed by “WHEN TO QUIT? Wise entrepreneurs know when to stop“. To be fair, when you dig into each post you find that it makes excellent points. Still the combined message is ambiguous.
                       
When you consider the two conflicting types of message above along with people’s natural fear of failure and the tendency for entrepreneurs to want to move on to the next idea anyway, you start to see one of the reasons why many entrepreneurs never convert their ideas to real businesses and many more are quite simply confused about whether to pack it in or persevere.
 
So what is the answer? Well I say always accept no for an answer, but by this I don’t mean always give up at the first hurdle. On the contrary what I am advising is that entrepreneurs embrace rejections – accept them not only as an unavoidable part of the journey towards success but indeed as a required one.
 
The trick is to treat rejections as though they were speed breaking bumps rather than road blocks on your road to starting your venture. They ensure that you concentrate on what you are doing and that you arrive at your destination safely. Let me give you an example. I recently wrote to one of the biggest websites in the Web 2.0 space asking if I could integrate a product I am developing to their site. The answer when it finally came was that they couldn’t officially integrate with my product and that for a number of reasons they felt it was unlikely that any other similar site would.
 
Now this proposed integration was central to my marketing strategy so the rejection was a huge blow. After a day or so of feeling sorry for myself I reread the message and noticed the word “officially”. The man had said that they couldn’t officially integrate. I wondered then if there was possibly a way to unofficially integrate with them. I don’t know if the man intended for me to read between the lines like this or not but it turned out that there was indeed a way to unofficially but legitimately offer my product for use on the site without doing a ‘mashup’ between their site and mine. My idea and site are still in development but things are looking very good indeed. Granted I will not have the official backing of the big social site along with the instant popularity that it might bring, but my new approach has opened up new possibilities that my previous plan couldn’t have.
 
The moral of this story is that there is usually a hidden message in a rejection. Look for it and prompt for it. Ask why your proposal is being rejected if an explanation is not voluntarily given. Probe further if you don’t fully understand or are not satisfied. Digest the information and find ways to use all or some of it to your advantage.
 
As always, wishing you the best with your new and existing ventures.