Knowing When To Quit
Winners sometimes quit and quitters sometimes win
My Take:
“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” It’s a message that many of us have been getting from parents, teachers and classroom motivational posters for most of our lives.
It’s also a fundamentally flawed premise.
Your time is your inventory, after all. Under certain circumstances, quitting is the best decision you can make. Given the venture climate, I’ve been getting a lot of queries from founders asking about which circumstances make walking away the right option.
The answer is different for everyone but I think there are three questions whose answers might help you come to your own conclusion.
Is there a nucleus of customers who want what you’re selling?
It doesn’t need to be everyone in America or even everyone in Detroit. I joke that in my first company we only had one or two pacific atolls worth of potential customers and for what we were selling, that was enough.
Is your team still with you?
Markets are efficient and it’s not only founder-types whose time is their inventory. If lots of people are leaving because they don’t see the potential anymore, you’d be a fool to not at least consider the possibility that you got drunk off your own kool-aid.
Do you have investors – or at least ONE investor – who is willing to put their money where their mouth is?
VCs only need one in ten portfolio companies to succeed in order to achieve stupid wealth. VCs are inherently diversified. Entrepreneurs? Not so much. Your VCs might be encouraging you to stick around at a floundering startup on the off chance the dealer turns up an ace. For this reason, the question isn’t whether your VCs are telling you to stick around. The question is whether those same VCs are willing to put up capital so you have a fair shot at landing the plane.
Are there other considerations that I’m missing or questions worth asking yourself? Would love to hear your thoughts.
What I’m Reading:
The engineering of an LLM agent system by Gal Vered VIA CheckSum
“After the more ‘Generic’ LLMs wave - GPT4, Mistral, and other models that are jack of all trades, master of none - the next wave of innovation will come from task-specific LLMs, that are able to employ multiple tools and techniques, to achieve a certain goal.”
House Passes Bill to Force TikTok Sale From Chinese Owner or Ban the App VIA NYTimes
The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood by Jonathan Haidt VIA The Atlantic
startups are a long-term game. sticking with it over the long run can deliver an outsized impact - or maybe, if you don't pivot, you've just wasted your time. So some form of "quitting" - evolving, pivoting, adjusting the strategy - might be necessary no matter what!
Very interesting topic Tom. One that people think about all the time. Knowing when to call it quits and when to dig in deeper is definitely different for everyone and their unique situation. That being said, Time only flows in one direction and ultimately understanding its value and deciding where to place your bets can be an extremely rewarding or incredibly challenging decision with lasting perceived consequences.
Certainly easier said than done for many, I deeply believe in following your heart and doing what you love. If you wake up in the morning and dread looking in the mirror, take a leap of faith and make a change. If you are one of the lucky ones out there that gets up and your passion drives you to dive deeper and shoot for more with the people that surround you, then bravo and you are going places. Do what you love, treat others the way you want to be treated, and eventually you find that your can move the needle and Thrive not just survive. Every day is a new opportunity to move the needle!