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Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

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Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#11

Post by garply »

pg wrote: post #2

You should change your idea when you (a) have new one you're convinced is better, and (b) it won't cost too much to switch to it (e.g. because it overlaps a lot with your current idea). Harder to say when to quit. I suppose you quit when you can't take it anymore. Which means deciding that depends less on the product than on you.

PG, what would you do if you already had a profitable, slowly growing product that was based on a mediocre idea, and two new ideas:

  A good idea with low diversification costs
  A great idea with high diversification costs
I say diversification costs, primarily time and focus, instead of switching costs because the first product will still be maintained and grown, not abandoned.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#12

Post by vaksel »

For me it's a 3 step process.

1. Make it, release it, drive 2,000 hits to the site, see conversions. If there are 0 conversions, then the idea is probably crap. If not, I try to optimize and drive another 2,000 hits to it.

2. If I get down to 1:200...then it's probably a good idea. The next step is to see if there is scale. A product that converts at 1:7 is not viable if the entire possible traffic is only 70 a month.

3. If I get a product that a) converts and b) has a lot of potential traffic, the next step is to see competition. If each click costs $5 and the first page of Google results for the relevant keywords is filled with high ranking websites...then I look at the profit margin to make sure I can afford to compete.

Essentially this makes sure that the product can be both profitable and has scale.

If there is low competition but no scale...it might still be a viable side project. Low competition = very easy to get to top of Google...so it might still be good for an extra $1-2K/mo with only a few hours spent a month on maintenance.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#13

Post by brlewis »

jonpaul wrote: post #7
pg wrote: post #2

You should change your idea when you (a) have new one you're convinced is better, and (b) it won't cost too much to switch to it (e.g. because it overlaps a lot with your current idea). Harder to say when to quit. I suppose you quit when you can't take it anymore. Which means deciding that depends less on the product than on you.

I don't think it's a good idea to just quit if you have a new idea that you think is better. I say this from experience. A few months back I was convinced that we should drop our iPhone apps because we weren't passionate about them. We weren't making that good of money on them either. I was really passionate about a book sharing website (shower idea that you wrote about) and I wanted to devote my efforts to it. Fast…

Change your standard for being convinced that another idea is better, and pg's heuristic would have worked in your situation.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#14

Post by bandhunt »

10ren wrote: post #9

I have to admit, I have been going on for years and years because I can see that it will work, no matter how much I hate it at a particular moment. I can't claim that this is the best approach, or even a good one, but that's what I'm doing: not quitting. I guess it's not really a decision . In the past, a free competitor caused me to quit - but that was a mistake, because mine was still valued, so I unquit that proje…

I agree. Inspiration is a big factor. I have hard numbers based on 50K users of where I think this can go; I just struggle with not finishing things.

Good luck with your deal! Pandora took 10 years to be where it is, so it's obviously the right thing to do in some cases.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#15

Post by bandhunt »

po wrote: post #3

I feel for you... There's the general problem of when to call it quits and then there's your particular startup. I would have to say that in my opinion working in the music industry is a tar pit. (I used to work at a major label) Because of the legal issues surrounding copyright law, the upsides are limited. In the case where you are successful, you will usually get shut down by either one of the labels, all of the l…

haha, nice analogy! Yeah, the music industry has extra hurdles for sure.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#16

Post by pg »

garply wrote: post #11
pg wrote: post #2

You should change your idea when you (a) have new one you're convinced is better, and (b) it won't cost too much to switch to it (e.g. because it overlaps a lot with your current idea). Harder to say when to quit. I suppose you quit when you can't take it anymore. Which means deciding that depends less on the product than on you.

PG, what would you do if you already had a profitable, slowly growing product that was based on a mediocre idea, and two new ideas: A good idea with low diversification costs A great idea with high diversification costs I say diversification costs, primarily time and focus, instead of switching costs because the first product will still be maintained and grown, not abandoned.

Depends on your goals. If you just want to make a good living with the least stress, change nothing. If you're more ambitious, try the great idea.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#17

Post by bandhunt »

vaksel wrote: post #12

For me it's a 3 step process. 1. Make it, release it, drive 2,000 hits to the site, see conversions. If there are 0 conversions, then the idea is probably crap. If not, I try to optimize and drive another 2,000 hits to it. 2. If I get down to 1:200...then it's probably a good idea. The next step is to see if there is scale. A product that converts at 1:7 is not viable if the entire possible traffic is only 70 a month…

Thanks! I have gone through a similar process.

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#18

Post by bandhunt »

pg wrote: post #2

You should change your idea when you (a) have new one you're convinced is better, and (b) it won't cost too much to switch to it (e.g. because it overlaps a lot with your current idea). Harder to say when to quit. I suppose you quit when you can't take it anymore. Which means deciding that depends less on the product than on you.

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: how do you decide when to quit, stick or pivot

#19

Post by po »

bandhunt wrote: post #15
po wrote: post #3

I feel for you... There's the general problem of when to call it quits and then there's your particular startup. I would have to say that in my opinion working in the music industry is a tar pit. (I used to work at a major label) Because of the legal issues surrounding copyright law, the upsides are limited. In the case where you are successful, you will usually get shut down by either one of the labels, all of the l…

haha, nice analogy! Yeah, the music industry has extra hurdles for sure.

:-) I hope I didn't sound too negative about your startup... I just think you have to put a lot of thought into exit strategy when you're doing something in music.
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