Indie Hackers: When do you give up on a project?
When do you give up on a project and move on?
A lot of advice says to ship fast, see if it gets traction, and abandon it if it doesn’t. The idea is to keep building new things and multiply your chances.
But are all projects supposed to show results within a few weeks?
There are also founders who made almost no money for months before things finally started working.
Personally, I think a project deserves at least 2–3 months of real testing before giving up on it.
How long do you usually give a project before moving on?
I’ll leave my latest project here if you want to take a look. Feedback is welcome: https://ideapz.vercel.app/
Time based rules feel wrong because they ask you to decide at the moment you are least able to. Two months in you have sunk cost, some encouraging noise, and no clear memory of what you originally expected. What fixed this for me was writing the kill criteria before launch, as a number and a date, while I still had nothing invested: if by this date fewer than X people have done the one thing that matters, it stops. Then the later decision is just reading what past you wrote, and the attachment you mentioned has nothing to argue with. Two to three months is reasonable, but the number attached to it matters more than the months do.
Yeah, I see what you mean, and I agree. That’s actually how I approach it too. I usually give myself a certain amount of time and set a goal I hope to reach during that period. I agree that defining the goal and deadline beforehand is probably the right way to do it.
I wouldn’t kill a project based on time alone. I’m building in a security-critical space, where trust, access to decision-makers and pilot discussions can take much longer than a typical SaaS launch. What I watch instead is whether the quality of the signals is improving: deeper feedback, introductions to the right people, real pilot conversations, and people willing to spend time testing.
If those signals stop getting stronger after repeated iteration, that’s when I’d seriously question whether to continue.
I see, interesting. It’s true that nowadays, with all the success stories we see on social media, we often give ourselves a very short amount of time to decide whether a project is worth pursuing. But as you said, many projects need to be refined and improved again and again before reaching their full potential, or before realizing that they ultimately aren’t worth pursuing.
Thanks for your feedback
Exactly. I think the hard part is distinguishing between “this needs more iteration” and “I’m emotionally attached to something that isn’t working.” For me, the quality of the signals over time is probably the best indicator.
Yes,that’s why I try not to get too attached to my projects, even though I really like them. Have you ever launched any projects that did fairly well, out of curiosity? If you don’t mind me asking, how long did you give them before deciding to either abandon them or keep going?