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Ask HN: At what point is it appropriate to leave startup?

5 points by tonym9428 ↗ HN
So I'm an engineer working at my third start up.

First startup went through three pivots before I chose to leave.

Second startup never pivoted.

Third startup is on the third pivot and I'm thinking it's time to leave.

After how many pivots do you chose to leave?

8 comments

[ 11.9 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] thread
lastofus
You are presuming # of pivots correlates strongly with success.

The idea being tried, and the team executing on it are probably much stronger predictors.

If you are already in doubt enough to ask, it's probably time to move on.

afarrell
> If you are already in doubt enough to ask, it's probably time to move on.

Why is it the case that doubts imply you should move on rather than doubts imply you should honestly investigate those doubts?

cimmanom
What do the pivots have to do with it?

A startup job should be like any other job: you leave when what you're getting out of it (in terms of money, learning, satisfaction; likelihood of future reward; and whatever else matters to you) is no longer worth what you're putting into it (in terms of time; aggravation; opportunity cost; etc.)

afarrell
Why is the number of pivots the question? It seems like the questions should be:

- Do I still have confidence in the executive’s team’s ability to decide on a sound strategy and align people in that direction?

- Is the organization healthy and are good patterns of communication, coordination, and execution being laid down?

- Does the product direction we are currently taking have a sensical business model it can possibly support?

The decision-making processes around the pivots and the way they were communicated can provide a lot of information to answer these questions.

agitator
It also sounds like these are the questions you need to have answered before you start your next startup job as well. ;) Looks like you have been joining and hoping the founders knew what they were doing, only to be disappointed.

Did any of your previous companies, that pivoted so many times end in success? Or were your exits worthwhile?

tonym9428
No exits. Yeah, I definitely need to do a better job in selecting who I end up working for
afarrell
You might try working for a company that is a bit farther along—someone that has found product-market fit and is focusing on scaling up. I work for one and its really great: lots of challenges but a focus on long-term sustainability and a thoughtfulness to how projects are decided on and run.
muzani
I had to pivot a startup far more than 3 times to get to success. The key is really how fast it gets to product market fit.

Before that, startups need to build very cheaply and crudely. E.g. I wouldn't even build a database unless I'm certain I need one - in many prototypes, hardcoded data or dummy data works too. Once you get the first $1000, you can start scaling.

I've seen multimillion dollar companies start with an annual revenue of $10k. Startups always start slow.

To answer the question, you should have a good gutfeel for it. If you think the leadership is strong and the product is something people want, stay. If you're just in it because you think the market could be big, but your heart isn't into it, then leave.

Startups thrive on the outliers. There's not much process to it.