why i have thick skin

One of my first apps was childish. It was targeted at a cutesy audience, a wee bit pompous, and easily laughable. But I spent 6 months building it. Even with AI, it was still the most transformative experience of my life for a multitude of reasons.

For one, it was the most devoted and committed I have ever been in my life. To this day, there has not been a period where I have been able to replicate the sheer amount of dedication and grit that I had in those months. Not to say that I don't have those things and work to acquire more every day, but that was the absolute peak.

I learned that if you push hard enough, believe that you can, drive through obstacles, and don't go to sleep, you too can create something. For me, it was something of an 'aha' moment because I really did discover my self worth and learn what it meant to keep going.

This transformative experience continued after launch day. And if you read the title, you'll know where this is going. In the buzz of launching, I showed it to some 'friends' of mine at the time. Thinking nothing of it, I continued my normal launch push. Soon after, I was heavily berated by those people I trusted and mocked for weeks on end. It was miserable. They left one star reviews on the app, wrote mean comments online, and were generally just assholes.

And I can now say I don't give a flying f*ck.

Looking back on it now, I can easily see that their feelings were directed at me, not at the app. Never in any of those insults did they launch themselves at my app, or my creation. And I can live with that. It taught me that people are entitled to (however ugly) their own opinion, and all I could do is make a product good enough to shut them up.

From then on out, my outlook has been this: if they're being mean to the founder about something unrelated to the business, the product is fine. If they take the time to go out of line and out of scope, you're doing something right. The product is the first thing people target, and if it is so bulletproof from criticism (albeit this was a small microcosm) that they feel the need to attack me is something of a compliment.

And so while it affected me, and we still aren't friends, I can continue to take a badge of pride, knowing that my first product bested them :). I took from this that I should use advice, and not care about slander. If people are questioning my product, leadership, or ability, then that needs to be seriously addressed. But verbal assault is a pretty nice compliment.