The thing you've been pouring yourself into isn't working. Now what?

Hey man, I don't think you should walk away from something you fully believe in. At the end of the day, if you have an idea which is already proven in the market, there is a good chance you can make it work.

Does what you are building solve a problem?

Does it solve that problem better or differently to what is already on the market?

If so, you have a good foundation to build on. Your biggest problem now is acquiring customers.

Most new businesses start slow and steady, growing organically, however, if you want to validate your model as soon as possible and have budget to throw at it, turn to paid marketing.

If you still feel like you aren't seeing progress, don't quit yet. Turn to entrepreneurs, talk about what you've tried and ask for feedback.

Hope this helps - I've found out that moving from one model to the next hoping for a breakthrough rarely works. Anything can get you from A-B, you just need to see it through

I have picked a tactical project. If I can’t get X (Direct money) I can get Y (Following/goodwill) or Z (Work opportunities) out of it. I can keep pressing on as there is a bigger strategy and multiple pivots. Can you think of multiple upsides for your thing? Maybe not off hand but with some deep thought?

I also picked something I not only simply enjoy doing, I even did it for meditation to calm down.

With solo I think you can be holistic and think about what you enjoy doing intersecting with what the market will pay for. So many things to pick so pick something that gives you joy and sticking it out will be easier and more probable.

It's a great read and a reminder that we are all on our own journey.

It's so easy to compare ourselves to the latest successes we see. Everything I've built grew slowly...and very reliably and consistently, which is nice!

I usually evaluate the project and analyze its chances. You also always need to look at the audience and ask them if they like this product. But to be honest now it sounds trite :D I often listen to my inner voice.

Oh... Great questions. I struggle with it a lot.
I analyze numbers, it is not necessarily the MRR it can be users, subscribers, and feedback.

If anything says it is growing there should be an opportunity for the future.

Hey Cory,

My advice is to assess the project and ask yourself the right questions. Is it not working because you have tried everything and the product you're building doesn't have a market or is it because you have been in it for so long and you don't see positive results and the mountain seems impossible to climb.

In the first case then you have no other option but to quit and start something else. But in the second option, my question to you is what would you do that would make you so much happier if you ever quit? You will see that the follow up questions will be ok how can I make my product better? How can I refine the audiences I am targeting? How can I improve my positioning? My messaging? My content? ...

Best of luck

I think we should keep asking questions and at the very end you will find the answer.

Why isn't working?
(say) Approach is incorrect
(say) What could be the better or even the best approach
(say) Already some tested solutions that are working great
(say) Ok, then can I go by that? If so, what's different in my product
(say) so and so is different. It means I can implement it with the existing approaches
Got the solution!

So something like that until you find a proper solution, keep questioning!

And sometimes, you may also get a clear answer if you actually have to quit it.

Hope this would be helpful!

if you have access to someone whom you can use as sounding board that is critical and gives you his/her honest opinion that works too. It helps you before you can start by puncturing holes in your acquisition strategy but it also helps you when you are trying to quit after creating mvp by asking if you have exhausted all the marketing channels before calling it quits.

You could pivot being change your customer audience your product is serving. The product has to be 10X better than the competition as well.

Some advice I received was to evaluate if you felt that your product idea is directionally correct rather than it being a binary good or bad idea.

If you're making progress, just not as fast as you'd like, try to talk to people who pass on your product to see if maybe there's a feature you're missing, if you're messaging isn't clear, if your target audience isn't right, etc.

If still, your product is growing slowly, then maybe it's just the natural rate of growth for your market. Sometimes that's the aspect of luck in the idea you choose and whether you're early, go viral, etc. Personally, if you believe that the market size is good, I would stick to it as long as I was making progress as that's something I can control.

Have a concrete deadline and a primary KPI that must be hit by that deadline. Don't hit the KPI number, turn and walk away

I couldn't agree more, Cory! It's always such a tug of war. Honestly, I've found that once I started taking other small projects that maybe bring in some income and keep my creative juices flowing for my current main project Geeks and Experts then I feel more at ease.