HN Explorer

Ask HN: Persevere, pivot, or fail?

7 points by kenjackson ↗ HN
Depending on which successful startup company you read about, you hear one of three lessons:

1) We had a great idea and while no one was buying it or giving us the time of day, we pushed forward. Many times only eating rats for weeks on end, but we had grit, if nothing else. And then eventually we sold the company for $1B.

2) We had a great idea that was having trouble, but we realized there was this interesting aspect of our product that we pivoted on and this became MacroWare -- the largest software company ever.

3) We tried for six months, but clearly the idea had no legs. Many said to push for a full year, but I believe in failing fast. So I killed the company, and that is what allowed me to start my next company, that made instantly made billions.

All these success stories face a crossroads where things aren't really going well and they all end with a different "moral to the story" ending. But when you're actually living it in real life how do you figure out which story you're in? Should we hunker down and start eating rats, or fail now and move on to one of the other 50 ideas I have?

7 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 25.9 ms ] thread
rmason
I've been where you are now and I perservered on and it was for me the wrong choice. For you it might be the correct choice. How do you know?

Read Eric Ries the lean startup and Ash Maurya's Running Lean and I truthfully belive you will get your answer. Just wish they had been published ten years sooner.

md1515
We can't answer for you, bud. Read rmason's material and try to decide for yourself. You know best! Good luck
md1515
How do I get points deducted for this?..
JoachimSchipper
It happens. In the most stupid case, someone on an iPhone tried to upvote you but narrowly missed the small up arrow. Move on, and don't pollute the comment thread with "why did I get downvoted" comments.
jpulgarin
The best way to do this is to precommit to a decision based on any number of metrics. For example, you might decide that if in 6 months time you have less than 10k users, or less than 50k in revenue you will give up on the company. This has the the downside of not allowing you to incorporate lessons that you learn during the creation of your company into your decision making process, but this pales in comparison to the disadvantage of making the decision at a point where you'll be increasingly likely to fall prey to sunk cost biases.
teyc
Talk to more people, and try to find the theme in the discussion? Then pivot that way.
kellco
Here are some ideas to think about.

1. Depends on what the problems are and if they are fixable. If there are solutions, if others have done it before, or if you know you can persevere and win in the end than obviously stick to it.

2. How passionate are you about the idea/product/industry? If you know deeply inside your heart that's what you want to do then you either persevere or pivot by changing something small or trying a different angle. If it's a throwaway idea and you're in it for the money and quick bucks then it doesn't matter if you do another idea or project...then fail fast.

3. How much time/money have you already invested into it? Can you salvage it or is there something valuable you can save out of it? If you spent a few hours on a landing page and it doesn't convert, toss that. Or if the project was started in a weekend and you don't really have much to lose if you start another project because you don't think it'll work after a sample testing.

4. But if you spent a year or two years on your company and all your life's savings on it, then ask yourself why you did that and if those reasons are still valid today.