Let’s imagine you raised $100M and built a hardware startup.

You worked for years to build a product, you release it, and then get a terrible review from the most famous tech reviewer on the planet.

What do you do next? How do you respond?

That’s what this post is gonna be about today. Whether you’re a VC-backed hardware founder or a SaaS founder or a VC or a creator, I think it’ll be a helpful framework for responding to critique online.

First, let’s meet the reviewer.

Say hello to the most famous tech reviewer on the planet: Marques Brownlee aka MKBHD aka The Grim Reaper of Hardware.

MKBHD has 18M+ subscribers and has been filming tech review videos since he was like 11 years old (#respect). Recently, he made a big splash when he gave TERRIBLE reviews to 3 products:

1. The Fisker Ocean

2. Humane AI Pin

3. Rabbit R1.

MKBHD is universally known as a fair and honest reviewer, which is why a bad review from MKBHD is so impactful. He’s even been called “the most powerful man in tech” off the reviews alone.

So let’s say you raised $100M and built your first iteration of a hardware product. You put blood, sweat, tears, and millions into this thing.

And MKBHD goes full grim reaper on it and says people shouldn’t spend their money on your product? What do you do? How do you respond?

How to Handle a MKBHD Roast

Your strongest response is humor.

I live by the motto: the best response to being ridiculed is to be ridiculous. This goes for anyone from a hardware founder to a creator like me. The best response to a roast is to roast yourself.

This is what I do anytime I get roasted online: I respond to their ridicule by acting ridiculous and diffusing the tension. It’s like that idea of when someone is trying to fight you, you get naked and it confuses them. Or when a bully is bullying you, the best way to make it stop is to laugh and bully yourself. You can’t hurt someone who already makes fun of themselves.

The father of startup accelerator Y Combinator explains:

That’s right.

If I got a bad review from MKBHD, I’d meme my way through it.

That’s why I made an Emergency MKBHD Meme Response Starter Pack for founders to use just in case. The first 3 memes got a lot of buzz on Twitter, and now here’s an extended version of the pack totally for free.

I hope these memes help you in your time of need.

Remember, if you’re getting ridiculed online, the best response is to be ridiculous. It shows strength, shows you don’t give a fuck, and most importantly, it’s WAAAAAY more fun than writing some lawyer-speak post!

Cyberpunk Hyperlinks:

I got only 1 link for you this week it’s so important 🇺🇸

I interviewed a former National Security Council member on:

• Why TikTok needs to be banned

• Why communism needs to be destroyed in America

• How he hit 50k Twitter followers tweeting about ‘Merica

Memes of the Week:

Let’s blow up the internet together.

Thanks for reading nerds.

Jason “The Memelord” Levin

Head of Growth @ Product Hunt, Author of Memes Make Millions