Try Feedback on Like a Jacket

You have to see if something fits before you choose to wear it

"This doesn’t solve a single problem we actually have. You’re solving something, but it’s not our problem."

Welcome to the fight. You just harvested a haymaker. It’s blunt. It’s direct. It’s the kind of feedback that can shake you if you let it. Don't forget, you asked for this feedback—no, you earned it. You built a product audacious enough to try solving a real customer problem. You built relationships strong enough that potential customers felt comfortable sharing critical feedback. You created an environment where someone was willing to take their time to give you raw, unfiltered feedback on your product. That’s a gift, and it hurts.

Getting rocked by feedback is different from knowing what to do with it. The real challenge isn't just taking the punch; it's figuring out what to do next. Should you implement the changes immediately? Incorporate the feedback into your roadmap? Shelve it because it doesn't align with your product strategy?

I think of feedback, especially critical feedback, a lot like a jacket: you have to try it on to see if it fits. Here are three tactics to help translate critical feedback into product insights.

1. Regulate Yourself

It's a little counterintuitive to say, but the first step to receiving critical feedback is to acknowledge that you're getting punched.? By recognizing the situation, you can better control your response. It’s OK to feel defensive in the heat of the moment, but you absolutely cannot act defensive. Your tone, body language, and words must convey that you are open and actively listening. In these precious moments of clarity with the user, your job is to absorb as much critical insight as possible.

After the critical exchange ends, summarize what you heard to ensure you truly understand the problem before reacting. The parroting technique works well for this—using the exact language from the critical feedback to demonstrate that you understand their position. This not only ensures clarity but also makes it easier to distill the feedback and relay it to your team in a meaningful way. If your conversations are digital, AI tools like Fathom or Granola can be especially useful for capturing key points, though a notebook and pencil work just fine in the real world.

When the meeting concludes and you've harvested the feedback, take the time to lick your wounds. It's natural to feel defensive, frustrated, or even discouraged in those moments. I know I’ve given product demonstrations where I was told I’d be laughed out of the room, where I could see frustration in my CEO’s eyes, or where the customer looked more interested in their phone than in my product. Those feelings are raw and uncomfortable, but acting on them may lead to what a mentor of mine calls career-limiting opportunities.?Take time to process what happened—go for a walk, take deep breaths, or set a timer to give yourself space to cool off before responding.

Remember, you just received a gift, and your mindset when reviewing that gift will determine its value.

2. Assess What You Heard

After the initial adrenaline rush subsides and you’ve translated the feedback into a summary, assess it critically. Start by identifying the specific points in your product user experience being criticized:

• Are their concerns about the usability of the software? Are clunky interactions preventing users from extracting value?
• Are the features overwhelming? Is the product trying to do too much instead of focusing on the core job to be done?
• Did the language you used to describe the product or instructions expose a communication issue?
• Did you build the wrong thing for this market?

Consider also the source of the feedback. What specific role provided the critical context? Are they a hands-on-keyboard user, an economic buyer, a potential external champion, an industry expert, or an investor? If the feedback is truly from a customer, are they showing buying signals? If you implemented their feedback, do you have evidence that they would actually purchase? Too often, especially in enterprise sales cycles, feedback strings us along—customers repeatedly ask for “just one more feature” to close the deal, only to keep moving the goalpost. The source of the feedback matters equally to the perspective it's coming from when determining how to move forward.

Take time to also consider the feedback against the larger tapestry of your product discovery plan. Is there a pattern in the feedback where multiple users and potential customers raised the same concern? Or is this a one-off opinion? Critical feedback provides an excellent opportunity to connect with your sales and customer success teams to learn if they are hearing similar signals. Your ability to demonstrate humility while assessing and sharing critical feedback? across the org goes a long way in disproving common tropes that strategy and product exist in an ivory tower.? Few statements impact a product leader’s credibility more than the ability to say, ‘We missed the mark, here's what we learned, and here's what we are doing about it.’

Combining the substance, source and sequence of critical feedback provides the evidence needed to test and potentially disprove your product strategy. Take what you've learned and challenge your assumptions related to?target market, differentiating features, and competitive advantage.?

3. Validate Before Acting

After you've had the chance to analyze the feedback objectively and break it down into specific insights about your product you're going to be eager to implement changes. At this moment it is important to intentionally pause for validation. Taking a few beats to ensure insights aren’t introducing excessive recency, halo, or hierarchy bias can prevent your team from experiencing unnecessary and disruptive shifts in strategy and tactics. Before making major changes, reach out to other users, team members, or industry advisors to see if they recognize the same issues. If you hear a consistent reaction to the feedback and proposed response, it’s a strong signal that you’re on the right track and ready for swift action.?

If you still have doubts, reconnect with the source of the critical feedback to validate that you truly understand their concerns. Share some of your initial thinking and even open the door to brainstorming potential solutions with them in the moment.? The increased clarity you gain from the conversation will either validate your position or encourage additional user engagement.

Remember, implementing strategic course corrections comes at a cost. Too many major adjustments can create whiplash and burnout, leaving your team feeling like they’re constantly pivoting with no clear direction. Beyond that, frequent shifts can erode confidence in your overall strategy, making it appear reactive rather than intentional.?The best leaders don’t just act quickly, they act decisively and thoughtfully. Taking the time to assess how feedback aligns with your product vision and strategy ensures that when you do make a change, it’s one the team can rally behind.

Talking Tactics: Trying on the Jacket

If you've taken the time to regulate your feelings, assess the insights, and explore the implications of critical feedback, you'll have a solid understanding of whether a course correction is needed to achieve your product strategy. You'll also clearly recognize when the jacket of critical feedback doesn’t fit.? When trying on a jacket at the store, you don't throw an ill-fitting garment on the ground because it too short in the sleeves or loose across the waist. No, you honor the jacket it by putting it back on its hanger and neatly returning it to the rack. This reverence is exactly?how you should treat the critical feedback you choose not to implement.

Just because feedback isn’t actionable now doesn’t mean the source won’t be valuable later. Remember, that individual had the courage to give your haymakers and hand grenades, they are a gift. Thank them by being specific about what you learned from their feedback and how it relates to the problem you’re solving. You will be shocked at the outsized positive response this effort will bring you.?I mean this, the energy you convey after receiving critical feedback will tell your customers more about your character in a moment than countless back-and-forth emails ever could. If you can sincerely show that you appreciate their effort and insight, they will be much more inclined to share more time and perspective in the future. I know of few better ways to turn critics into champions than by gracefully responding to feedback.?

Sometimes, the jacket fits perfectly. And when it does, it’s time to act with purpose and pace.

If I am being honest, these are the moments I live for as a product leader. The fungibility of software means that your team can receive feedback, connect with your team, and implement changes within hours. If you've done your discovery right, you probably had engineers in the room when the haymakers and grenades were being thrown. Odds are your engineers, who can’t help but want to solve a problem when they see it, have already been stewing on ways to tackle the technical challenges, while your designers, who are always seeking to enhance user experience, have been brainstorming interactions to improve value extraction. Now is your chance to unleash that creativity—create new prototypes, incorporate user feedback, and rapidly test implementation with them.

These moments of rapid response and resolution are truly awesome. The speed at which you receive critical feedback, incorporate it, and respond with a software update that addresses the concern will do more to win over customers than any sales or marketing effort ever could. When someone sees their concerns heard and implemented, they feel like you “get them.” The energy you demonstrate in responding will be something they want more of, and your odds of winning their deal—or deepening their engagement—will increase significantly. When?you can respond with lightning speed, the impact is undeniable.

Feedback as Fuel

There is perhaps no stronger way to turn a setback into swagger than by taking critical feedback and converting it into new customers. Strong product leaders don’t just listen to feedback, they use it to refine their decisions. When critical feedback reveals a flaw in strategy, the best leaders don’t double down on being ‘right’, they acknowledge the gap and work cross-functionally to realign the path forward.? Your ability to absorb, iterate, and improve is your secret weapon, and it’s why haymakers and hand grenades are so valuable to your team.

At the end of the day, how you respond to difficult feedback will define your trajectory—both in your product and in your life.? Get off the canvas and get back in the fight.