How do you know the right time to shut down a project?
I've built several products for the past 1.5 year, some of which made revenue and some of which went nowhere.
I've always been confused on deciding when to stop working on a project. Mainly because you find yourself trapped in sunk cost fallacy. But another fact is that startups sometimes take a long time to find if they really work say 6 months to 1 year, even
So I've made my decisions primarily based on the interest I have at that point in time.
I am curious to know how do you all, indie hackers decide when to continue working on a project when it's not actively showing signs of traction and when to pull on the plug?
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You just know. When it feels right to you.
A good idea is to give a project a couple years of runway and to check-in after that. Sometimes it takes longer than two years to build something, but you're really onto something. You can also fail really fast and realize a project isn't going anywhere a few months in.
But sometimes wouldn't it feel be early to give up on a project, Jon?
For instance, there might be a case we experiment with a particular marketing channel, but without giving enough time for other channels, wouldn't it be too quick to come to conclusion?
Sure. I gave up on plenty of projects that in the future I picked back up. But at the time I gave up on them, they felt right.
That makes sense, Jon
Before building a product, I put two constraints: timexboxing and revenue expectation.
Timeboxing helps me focus on getting things done quickly. If you feel like you need 2 weeks to make something. Stick to it. When the bell rings, you should ship it. If you haven’t done much, move on.
Revenue expectation: I try to estimate how much the product could make in 1-year. It could be $100, $1k, $10k, etc. It really depends on everyone’s situation here. Mine is around $2.5k If the product is far away from that, it’s time to move on.
Timeboxing is quite fascinating. So you don't proceed even due to sunk cost fallacy?
Right Cornetin. But how much marketing do you do for a particular product in that year given that you might also invest time into other products?
Timeboxing helps you get things out. If you don't, you end up building something that has tons of things but you missed the core value. People don't buy because your website is shining, loads 10ms faster than competitors, or is built with the latest tech around.
Got it. But what about the time needed to stay invested in a product? How long would you wait to see the results?
1 year. It needs to reach revenue expectation by that time.
Makes sense :)
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That's definitely a foolproof way which would save a lot of time. But often times, wouldn't customers be able to see the full picture only when the MVP's out?
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Agreed @Mu_Hulud :)