Want to know who ruins your decisions?

"Do you want to make the wrong decision? Ask everyone."

With this Naval’s quote, I could just about end today's newsletter right here, drop the mic, and exit stage left.

But it won’t be that easy, don’t worry.

Building in public. It's a trend I've been vibing with lately, as you already know.

But here's the thing - when you put your stuff out there, you're gonna get feedback.

Tweets, comments, e-mails, that guy at the party who tells you what he thinks about the latest collection. Everyone's got something to say.

But do they really know what you're up to well enough to give you advice? Or is it just the loudest voices on social making it seem like "everyone" thinks that?

And oh, the criticism. It's like a mosquito at a nudist beach - it knows exactly where to hit. We tend to remember that one nasty comment out of a thousand nice ones.

My friend, who’s an amazing photographer, even deleted his popular Instagram because the negativity was too much for him. A couple of mean comments among hundreds of kind ones, and BAM - it's all you can think about. Been there, felt that.

Let me share a fun story about "crowd decisions."

Recently, we added a kickass kids’ streetwear brand to our family. Before this, we were flooded with messages begging us to create children's stuff. When my son was born, people were like, "Finally, you guys will make some cool clothes for kids."

But here's the twist: I already had a favorite brand for bold kids. I’m really proud it's now part of our tribe, so we decided to have our brands, Life is Porno and Loof, join forces for a collab. The kid's sweatsuits were absolute fire. We released it, and the adults' tees were selling like hotcakes.

And the number of kid's sweatsuits we sold in the first few hours? A big fat ZERO.

They did sell later on (because, you know, moms shop differently), but if we'd spent time creating our own children's line based on what we'd heard over the years, we'd probably be in a world of trouble.

So here's the punchline. You know your mission. You know your goals. You know the path you've set out on. And while feedback can be helpful, it's essential to remember who's running the show (spoiler: it's you).

In the end, opinions are like shoes - everyone has them, but they aren't always your size.

So the next time you're faced with a decision, remember that it's YOUR call. Don't let the noise distract you from your path.

After all, if we wanted to make the wrong decision, we'd ask everyone, right?

Until next time,

Tino

PS: When talking about building in public… I was about to ask if you'd be interested in me sharing more about our journey in creating Pandafoo - the new Mickey for the street culture generation. But then I realized, why am I even asking? I'll just take my own advice and go for it. Stay tuned if you want to see behind the scenes of building a character and his entire world.