How I deal with nasty comments now as an indie hacker

A month ago, I made a post on Indie Hackers asking for advice on how to handle nasty comments from customers because I started to receive those as the business grew. Recently, after sending out an update on the free “PPC Ads Competitive Intelligence GPT”, I was taken aback by one message:

Please delete my account and any information linked to me and my email. And stop sending me emails with shitty promotional content, which is garbage. Thanks. (screenshot)

As some of you might know, I’ve spent days and nights in the past 18 months building Adzviser and it has become part of my identity. When I receive those negative comments, it’s hard to stay indifferent about it. It might take a few hours or even days to recover from one because:

• They often leave me hanging—most unhappy customers don't provide details that could help me improve the product.
• A negative comment can lead to hours of rumination and a productivity slump, as I try to understand the cause of their dissatisfaction and how I can make Adzviser better.

After reading what other people have recommended in my post, I decided to read some of the bad reviews of Spotify, one of my favorite apps. Here is what I found.

Oof - It was mind blowing to me that even a successful, widely-used service like Spotify receives its share of harsh criticism. This is a wake up call. Therefore, going forward, I will keep reminding myself of two things constantly when I receive a new nasty comment:

• Building something people like is tough. Building something everyone likes is impossible. Not every piece of feedback will be actionable, nor will every user be satisfied.
• Haters are gonna hate. It's an inevitable part of putting your work out there.

While I will continue to take constructive criticism seriously, helping to refine and improve Adzviser, I'll also keep in mind that some negativity comes with the territory of innovation and public exposure.

I will continue to improve Adzviser as much as I can. I hope Adzviser will bring even more values to marketers as it grows.