In my opinion, in the story you told, the problem is not whether to follow someone's advice, and also not that you can risk a small amount, but that you did not understand enough about where you wanted to invest your money. Also, those who gave you advice did not understand this, so their advice was not substantive.

If someone gives good advice and explains why they give that particular advice, it makes sense to think about this advice and accept or not accept it based on the information that you receive. And shrugging off advice just to invest in something new is not the smartest idea. If tomorrow someone offers to invest in selling snow in Antarctica to polar bears, it does not matter that the amount of investment may be small, this is clearly not an enterprise in which it makes sense to invest. But we understand this because we have sufficient preliminary data to analyze its prospects.

Every time it makes sense to think, and not take action blindly.