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I find this "never give up" stuff ridiculous. You'd never apply it to investing money (eg/ "I bought this stock 1 year ago and I'm just going to BELIEVE it into

by h34t 19y ago

I find this "never give up" stuff ridiculous. You'd never apply it to investing money (eg/ "I bought this stock 1 year ago and I'm just going to BELIEVE it into a higher price), so why would you apply it to investing your skills and emotional commitment to some particular problem in some particular market? Things change -- your market, your problem, your competitors, and yourself -- all change. As circumstances change, so must your strategy. Now, right until the very moment when you decide to do something else, obviously you want to be working your tail off, and you want your team to have enough confidence to be motivated. But there's a limit to the value of cheerleading; it can only go so far. The only reason cheerleaders have something to smile and dance about is because there's some hard-assed coach in the background who takes reality into account when making decisions. There's no reward for cowardice, or giving up on a good idea before giving your best effort... but it's equally true that there's no honor in marching stridently toward failure, on a path that you should have rationally abandoned months ago. Also, realize that there's a difference between giving up on your project, vs. giving up on your self, your team, your professional aspirations, etc... the former need not imply any of the latter.

edw519 19y ago
I find responses containing the word "ridiculous" ridiculous. (Does that mean this response is ridiculous?) Changing strategy does not equal giving up. Giving up prematurely is the single biggest impediment to failure in any field. How do you know if it's premature? You don't. So you keep going. FWIW, I hope my competitors think like you do. I'd be the only one left standing.
- h34t 19y ago
  Imagine you form a team of 5 people to build a new product -- for the sake of argument, let's say you've decided to try to build a prototype of a Gubmarine, a submarine made out of an advanced form of bubble-gum that can allow a torpedo to pass right through you, and then instantly re-seal up. Let's say that after 1 year, given changing competitive dynamics, it is the rational conclusion of the team's leader that continuing to build that product is no longer worth the opportunity cost of those 5 people's time based on an up-to-date risk/reward calculation (perhaps Wrigley's has just produced a prototype of their own Gubmarine that is 1.4 times better than yours and will be ready for market 5 months sooner than you can hope to be, and they already have a major advantage when it comes to distribution, which makes puts you at a considerable disadvantage). Is it then not plausible that ceasing work on your project is a good idea? This stuff happens in big companies all the time -- they try something new, and it doesn't work, so they cease efforts and try something else. That's a "change in strategy," not "quitting," because the company as a whole continues. But in a startup, it sometimes is called "quitting," because you often only have one product, and your team is specially designed just for that one product (and incidentally, that what made you so efficient)... but it also means that you can't just shuffle those people around to different positions in the company; instead, sometimes, unfortunately, you quit. You die. Same people, same product, same/similar change in capital allocation -- but for the big-company it's a "change in strategy," while for a startup, it's "quitting." Isn't this how startups work? What's wrong with condemning projects that aren't earning their keep? I am fully cognizant of the importance of having strong motivation and not giving up when it's too soon, and how difficult it is to know when it's ready to quit. And as long as I'm leading a project that's been decided to continue, I'll have my eyes facing forward and I'll raise all the hell I can muster to make things work, let me tell you. But the idea that it is never good to quit is, in my mind, still worth of the word "ridiculous," even if using that word makes me sound impolite or foolish. FWIW, I won't particularly mind if all my contemporaries think like you do -- that way many of them will never become my competitors, as they'll be too busy working on that great idea they had 3 years ago to notice that the world changed in the meantime, and that they'd be better off giving up and starting something different. (Or maybe I hope they think like I do, but they'll misjudge and quit too early. That's also a possibility. We're dealing in grays here, not B&W). -- Update -- Important to note, belatedly, that my talk about "giving up" etc. was in response to the comment I replied to, not the original questioner (who doesn't seem to be in such dire straits as someone who needs to hear what I've written).
  - edw519 19y ago
    "someone who needs to hear what I've written" Humbly spoken.
    - h34t 19y ago
      Some people need to hear that it's time to quit, because they're invested in something that's a dead end. Just as you shouldn't throw good money after bad, the same can be said for your time (and your team's time). The important part isn't who said it (in this case it happened to be me), it's the simple fact that sometimes, it's good advice. This was obviously not an original idea of mine. In fact I doubt if I've said anything original at all here; every time I think I've thought of something original, I seem to find myself reading a book by someone who's already thought a couple steps ahead of me a few weeks later (luckily, that's okay -- ideas need not be original to be useful). I might have said "someone who needs to face the realities of extricating themselves out of a dead end project" instead of using the shorthand "what I've written" to avoid such confusion. I was not intending to come across as some know-it-all guru, and it is my fault if my words conveyed that impression (and they well may have). * Also note that the first half of my sentence said that the questioner was not "somebody who needs to hear what I've written." * I am assuming that you were being sarcastic with this last reply, which I felt was a safe assumption, but I can't really know, because I don't know you, and communicating via text is hell and we are prone to vastly overestimate our own comprehension of the other person's intent. My apologies if I screwed up.
      - edw519 19y ago
        Yes, I was being sarcastic. Darn, I keep making that mistake. Just like I was not being literal when I said "never". I was just trying to emphasize that too many give up too soon with an extraordinary (and apparently inappropriate) word choice. You can never be too thin or too rich, either. Oh, never mind. (Oops, I did it again.) Good arguments all around. I think we've pretty much beaten this one to death. I give up - gotta go fix that bubble gum submarine leak.
      - fiaz 19y ago
        h34t, Please read the second paragraph in this article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00.... How different would the developed world be if he didn't persist in creating his own "Gubmarine" and listened to his colleagues who told him to quit? Success is the veil of hard work, difficulty, and a whole lotta pain. It's the result of these things (and many more negative things people usually avoid enduring) that we identify as "success". Rarely do we see the torment that the successful go through in order to get where they are.
- nostrademons 19y ago
  I found Seth Godin's The Dip had a nice way of determining whether it was worth continuing on an idea. He suggested that you imagine that you succeed completely in your execution: everything goes according to plan, you can deliver completely on your vision, all your assumptions are proven right. Now ask yourself: 1.) Has the world changed appreciably because of your success? Will people notice the difference? 2.) Are you now the best in the world at the particular mark you've chosen to make on the world? If the answer to one of these is "no", you probably want to give up and try something else. Just because the answer is "yes" doesn't mean you should keep going (I've seen more startups killed because they couldn't build the product than because they built the product and nobody wanted it), but it's a pretty strong indicator that you're on to something. Technical problems have a way of being solvable if you get desperate enough. These questions were a major reason I quit FictionAlley - as much as I liked the people involved and loved the community, it's hard to justify working on a plain old website used by a narrow subculture that legally has no prospective of revenue or buyout. They were a major reason I quit my last employer - the mission had changed from "revolutionize the financial industry" to "build products for keeping track of obscure SEC regulations", and we were using technology (Java & JSF) where there is no particular benefit to being the best in the world at it. It's why my startups is no longer maintaining Diffle.com, which was really intended as a "warm up" to get a feel for the industry. It's a major reason I'm sticking with our current plan, because I feel that if we can succeed in our execution, it's something fundamentally different from what's out there. I may have to reevaluate in 6 months though, since the competitive environment may change any time.

by h34t 19y ago

edw519 19y ago

I find responses containing the word "ridiculous" ridiculous. (Does that mean this response is ridiculous?) Changing strategy does not equal giving up. Giving up prematurely is the single biggest impediment to failure in any field. How do you know if it's premature? You don't. So you keep going. FWIW, I hope my competitors think like you do. I'd be the only one left standing.

h34t 19y ago
Imagine you form a team of 5 people to build a new product -- for the sake of argument, let's say you've decided to try to build a prototype of a Gubmarine, a submarine made out of an advanced form of bubble-gum that can allow a torpedo to pass right through you, and then instantly re-seal up. Let's say that after 1 year, given changing competitive dynamics, it is the rational conclusion of the team's leader that continuing to build that product is no longer worth the opportunity cost of those 5 people's time based on an up-to-date risk/reward calculation (perhaps Wrigley's has just produced a prototype of their own Gubmarine that is 1.4 times better than yours and will be ready for market 5 months sooner than you can hope to be, and they already have a major advantage when it comes to distribution, which makes puts you at a considerable disadvantage). Is it then not plausible that ceasing work on your project is a good idea? This stuff happens in big companies all the time -- they try something new, and it doesn't work, so they cease efforts and try something else. That's a "change in strategy," not "quitting," because the company as a whole continues. But in a startup, it sometimes is called "quitting," because you often only have one product, and your team is specially designed just for that one product (and incidentally, that what made you so efficient)... but it also means that you can't just shuffle those people around to different positions in the company; instead, sometimes, unfortunately, you quit. You die. Same people, same product, same/similar change in capital allocation -- but for the big-company it's a "change in strategy," while for a startup, it's "quitting." Isn't this how startups work? What's wrong with condemning projects that aren't earning their keep? I am fully cognizant of the importance of having strong motivation and not giving up when it's too soon, and how difficult it is to know when it's ready to quit. And as long as I'm leading a project that's been decided to continue, I'll have my eyes facing forward and I'll raise all the hell I can muster to make things work, let me tell you. But the idea that it is never good to quit is, in my mind, still worth of the word "ridiculous," even if using that word makes me sound impolite or foolish. FWIW, I won't particularly mind if all my contemporaries think like you do -- that way many of them will never become my competitors, as they'll be too busy working on that great idea they had 3 years ago to notice that the world changed in the meantime, and that they'd be better off giving up and starting something different. (Or maybe I hope they think like I do, but they'll misjudge and quit too early. That's also a possibility. We're dealing in grays here, not B&W). -- Update -- Important to note, belatedly, that my talk about "giving up" etc. was in response to the comment I replied to, not the original questioner (who doesn't seem to be in such dire straits as someone who needs to hear what I've written).
- edw519 19y ago
  "someone who needs to hear what I've written" Humbly spoken.
  - h34t 19y ago
    Some people need to hear that it's time to quit, because they're invested in something that's a dead end. Just as you shouldn't throw good money after bad, the same can be said for your time (and your team's time). The important part isn't who said it (in this case it happened to be me), it's the simple fact that sometimes, it's good advice. This was obviously not an original idea of mine. In fact I doubt if I've said anything original at all here; every time I think I've thought of something original, I seem to find myself reading a book by someone who's already thought a couple steps ahead of me a few weeks later (luckily, that's okay -- ideas need not be original to be useful). I might have said "someone who needs to face the realities of extricating themselves out of a dead end project" instead of using the shorthand "what I've written" to avoid such confusion. I was not intending to come across as some know-it-all guru, and it is my fault if my words conveyed that impression (and they well may have). * Also note that the first half of my sentence said that the questioner was not "somebody who needs to hear what I've written." * I am assuming that you were being sarcastic with this last reply, which I felt was a safe assumption, but I can't really know, because I don't know you, and communicating via text is hell and we are prone to vastly overestimate our own comprehension of the other person's intent. My apologies if I screwed up.
    - edw519 19y ago
      Yes, I was being sarcastic. Darn, I keep making that mistake. Just like I was not being literal when I said "never". I was just trying to emphasize that too many give up too soon with an extraordinary (and apparently inappropriate) word choice. You can never be too thin or too rich, either. Oh, never mind. (Oops, I did it again.) Good arguments all around. I think we've pretty much beaten this one to death. I give up - gotta go fix that bubble gum submarine leak.
    - fiaz 19y ago
      h34t, Please read the second paragraph in this article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604891,00.... How different would the developed world be if he didn't persist in creating his own "Gubmarine" and listened to his colleagues who told him to quit? Success is the veil of hard work, difficulty, and a whole lotta pain. It's the result of these things (and many more negative things people usually avoid enduring) that we identify as "success". Rarely do we see the torment that the successful go through in order to get where they are.
nostrademons 19y ago
I found Seth Godin's The Dip had a nice way of determining whether it was worth continuing on an idea. He suggested that you imagine that you succeed completely in your execution: everything goes according to plan, you can deliver completely on your vision, all your assumptions are proven right. Now ask yourself: 1.) Has the world changed appreciably because of your success? Will people notice the difference? 2.) Are you now the best in the world at the particular mark you've chosen to make on the world? If the answer to one of these is "no", you probably want to give up and try something else. Just because the answer is "yes" doesn't mean you should keep going (I've seen more startups killed because they couldn't build the product than because they built the product and nobody wanted it), but it's a pretty strong indicator that you're on to something. Technical problems have a way of being solvable if you get desperate enough. These questions were a major reason I quit FictionAlley - as much as I liked the people involved and loved the community, it's hard to justify working on a plain old website used by a narrow subculture that legally has no prospective of revenue or buyout. They were a major reason I quit my last employer - the mission had changed from "revolutionize the financial industry" to "build products for keeping track of obscure SEC regulations", and we were using technology (Java & JSF) where there is no particular benefit to being the best in the world at it. It's why my startups is no longer maintaining Diffle.com, which was really intended as a "warm up" to get a feel for the industry. It's a major reason I'm sticking with our current plan, because I feel that if we can succeed in our execution, it's something fundamentally different from what's out there. I may have to reevaluate in 6 months though, since the competitive environment may change any time.