Last week I met a founder of an up and coming company. She had raised a small round of funding and was considering going out for a series A (or big seed) soon. The problem was that every investor she spoke with wanted her to go down a different path for the company. The founder wasn’t sure what to do about balancing what her vision was versus what the people that were going to give her money wanted.
I think this happens often in the early-stage company-building phase. Founders go the route of taking investor money and the investors need to obviously like the product AND vision. The problem here though is that if you ask 100 potential investors where they think the business should go, you’ll get 100 different answers (and rightfully so). Your goal as a founder is to build a company for your users, members, and customers, not for investors.
With investors you need to be able to prove to them that the direction you plan to take your business is the right one (by using data and the like). You may be tempted to follow everything they suggest to a T, but never mix up building a company for investors with building a company the way your actual customers/users/clients want it.