When To Quit, Give Up A New, But Toxic Project

If you’re trying to “live life on your terms”?

Then, more than likely you’ve started working on a project that you hope will help you do this.

It could be a business idea. Writing a book, recording an album. Hosting a podcast, or starting a YouTube channel. The list and types of projects that you can focus on is endless.

And, more often than not. The opportunities are also endless.

That isn’t the problem.

It’s knowing when to quit something.

Do you stick with something a little bit longer? Or do you cut your losses and quit working on that project altogether?

It’s hard to know.

I’ve put together a series of questions at the end which may help you decide whether to quit something or not.

A Parable From “The Gold Rush”

There’s a story from the gold rush era in the U.S.

It’s about a gentleman, that bought a piece of land.

Convinced that there was a vein of gold somewhere under the surface. He spent all day, every day, digging for gold, trying to see if he could find this mythical vein buried on this land.

After months and months of digging. Nothing!

He decided to cut his losses and quit digging for gold.

He managed to sell the piece of land. I’m not sure if the story says he lost money on the sale or not.

The new owner of the land. Continued digging in the place the man had started mining before he decided to sell the land.

After removing the soil, only a couple of inches deep. He found gold. A huge vein of it. One of the biggest ever mined during the gold rush.

I’m not sure if any of this is true. But it’s a great story.

The “moral” is to not quit. Don’t give up too early.

But do these types of tales give you enough context?

What Happened To These Men?

This is the problem with these types of stories.

Like the home or garden renovation shows on TV.

They don’t revisit and show us what has happened 12 months down the line.

We assume that the first man died a broke, poor, bitter, resentful old man for missing out.

We also think that the second man, the one who bought the land off the first. Became extremely wealthy and lived a long, happy, fulfilling life.

All from this one decision.

What If Missing Out Was The Best Thing That Could Happen?

What if the first man didn’t know shit about gold.

That once he struck the vein. He didn’t know how to mine it? Get it out of the ground and process it to make money.

What if he didn’t have the contacts to sell the gold?

That it was costing him more in loans, debt and labour than he could get back from selling the gold.

It was a rough time back then, what if he got ripped off? What if he got robbed, and killed for his gold?

What if he left the Wild West? Moved to New York, got involved in property in Manhattan and became one of the richest landowners in the U.S.

All because he switched projects? Because he quit!

That everything he learned from missing out on the gold rush. Gave him more skills and knowledge, that made him more money than if he had struck gold in the first place?

What If Striking Gold Isn’t A Good Thing?

Again, we assume that the second man has all the resources to make himself rich from the gold.

But we don’t know that for sure.

Like the first man. Does he have the resources and knowledge to make a huge profit? Will he get robbed, killed even?

Let’s say he does become rich. Is he happy? The risk and effort from mining and selling gold. Could be extremely hard, and competitive. The fight has left him drained, a shell of his former self.

What if the profit at the end of the process wasn’t that much? That it could only support him for a few years. And he had to start all over again?

There’s also a saying from the gold rush era.

“Don’t dig in a gold rush, sell the shovels”.

Because a project looks lucrative we get convinced that it’s worth the time, and the effort. Trying to plug knowledge gaps, clawing to move forward.

A small side step could be far better for you than heading down that path in front of you.

When To Quit: Contrasting Advice

“Don’t give up, you could be 4 inches from striking gold”.

This is the biggest takeaway from the gold rush story.

It’s even worse now with the internet. You can scroll on your newsfeed, and see advice that is polar opposites of each other.

Let’s say you’re on X/Twitter.

You see a post from Alex Hormozi talking about how he dropped all other projects. Focused on one. Stuck at it for months, a year even. And that’s why he is now successful. That he doesn’t need to worry about money anymore.

Then the next post is from Marc Lou. He has launched yet another startup. Only spent a few weeks working on it. Has launched it and it’s making money already. More than you make each month working a 9-5.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?”

Do I pick one project? Shut down the rest. Grind as much as I can. For the next 6 months?

Do I keep launching? Work on all my ideas. Only spend a month on each, to see which works.

Seeing all this “advice” makes things worse.

You feel like shit.

Either you feel like you’re not committed enough and call yourself a piece of shit.

Or you feel like you’re not experimenting enough, to “strike gold” and call yourself a piece of shit.

It Goes Back To Context

Again, you don’t know the fabric of these people’s minds.

You only see 1% of Alex Hormozi’s day. And only 1% of Marc Lou’s builds.

And yes, they are great at showing behind the scenes. Both have spoken a hell of a lot about the early days and the difficulties.

As well as now showing the upside of their success.

Here lies the problem.

You aren’t them.

You are you.

Know Thyself

Are you better at focusing on a single project and going all in?

Is it more important to have variety and have many things on the go?

What about a combination of both?

I’ve written about the comparison game a lot. And I’ve another article discussing that it’s you vs you, nothing else.

So I won’t go into it.

Here’s a tweet that sums up how to deal with seeing other people’s advice and successes.

The TLDR of Dagobert’s post is to embrace who he is. Which gives him more energy and happiness.

This alone could be enough to help you decide whether to quit a project or not.

If not. Here’s a set of questions that can help you decide.

7 Questions To Help You Decide To Quit Or Not

From my 15 years of working on my projects. With around 20 behind me.

I’ve now got bags of data to look at.

From this data. I’ve come up with 7 questions that you can ask yourself to help you decide if you want to stick with a project or quit working on it altogether.

1) Do you want to work with/for the people you that project can help?

One of my products. Elementary Analytics. I wasn’t sure who I could help. It was in the B2B space, but I wasn’t sure what type of businesses I could help.

The product had evolved. It looked like I could help small marketing agencies with their data. To create dashboards and reports.

I won’t bore you with the full details, but I never want to build a software solution for this audience again.

It seems every marketing agency wanted something different.

All wanted “the moon on a stick”. And they wanted it for free.

The moral? Make sure the target audience, is the people you can help. That ideal avatar is someone you want to work with.

If not, it might be time to ditch that project.

2) Do you see yourself doing it long-term?

I’m in the top 1% of podcasters that ever lived.

I know I’m bragging. From 2020 to 2023 I recorded and published 85 episodes of a podcast. Almost one a week for 85 weeks.

But I decided to stop recording the podcast.

Why?

Because I couldn’t see myself doing it for the long term. Not that particular podcast anyway.

If you can’t see yourself committing to it long-term. Then is it even worth spending any more time on it?

When I say long-term. It could be a case you focus on a different project for a period of time.

But still, commit to focusing on this project in the future. And that you will revisit the project for years to come.

If not, is it time to stop working on that project altogether?

3) Are you chasing the money – to sell it down the line

I’ve made this mistake a few times. Again, this was one of the reasons I stuck with working on V1 of Elementary Analytics for so long.

In the early days of the project. I managed to be a guest on one or two podcasts.

One in particular had me chasing the money.

The backers and funders of the podcast were a VC company. And they used the podcast to find companies that they could help scale. And long-term, investment in.

As I was on the show. I thought that I was on to something.

So I kept grinding with the project. For years.

Guess what?

They never came back and invested in me. The project didn’t make me a millionaire.

Because if you chase one thing, the money, you’ll never catch it.

Yes, I get it. And I’m the same. I’m in it for the money, because that can lead to the ultimate goal, freedom.

But when you focus only on the potential riches. You don’t always make the right decision for the project.

If you are only focusing on the potential sale to become rich. Is it time to review the project?

4) Have the costs got out of control

There’s a great tool for Gmail called Gmass. Which turns your account into a mini email marketing tool.

And I had this idea to create a “sister product”. Do the same but for Outlook.

The founder of Gmass even offered his support.

Excited, I started building. Adding new features.

Making a very cool product.

But as with a lot of my projects over the years. No one cared. Hardly anyone paid for it.

The running costs grew and grew. It was costing me £130 a month to run the project. And it was bring in something like £10-20 a month.

I’d also spent a small fortune on different assets for that project. As well as pumping money into Facebook Ads to try and fast-track success.

That project alone must have cost me at least £5,000.

Not good.

In the early days, you need to keep the costs as low as possible.

I made the mistake of letting it grow. Without adding revenue to cover it.

If the costs have risen and your funding is from other sources. Not from people paying you money. Is it time to switch off the project?

5) Can you change “pivot” to move forward

I’ve gone into a lot of detail in another blog post, Pivot To A New Audience But Also Remove Features.

If you’ve been able to get initial traction. Or like me. The marketing site for the website it getting a lot of traffic and visitors. But the project isn’t moving forward.

Can you take advantage of this by changing the product?

Even to the point of taking things away. Removing features if it’s a software product.

6) Is it a “golden goose” or “labour of love”

I’ve touched on these a little in the previous questions.

But I like to ask myself this question in the early days of projects. The idea refinement stage.

These aren’t my phrases. They come from Ramit Sethi and his demand matrix. He goes into detail in this article.

This matrix is a framework to help you decide if you should continue to work on an idea or quit thinking about it.

You want a “golden goose” – high price, many customers.

A high-end idea is also good – high price, few customers.

What you want to avoid is the labour of love, low price, and few customers.

Unfortunately, I’ve landed in this quadrant far too many times.

And yes, it’s OK to work on this type of project. If it’s a “passion project”, then that’s OK.

If you have zero expectations of it, you want to take it on for the experience (which leads to #7). Then great. Or if it’s your passion and you want to do it for the sake of doing it, that’s also fine.

But if it ends up as a “labour of love”. A lot of effort for no income. Should you even start working on that idea?

7) Are you learning & growing from it?

I’ve heard a lot of statements about entrepreneurship.

One that sticks with me, is your project, business and income can only grow to the extent that you do.

And I love this reframe. It gives you something to focus on.

Improving yourself.

So, if a project feels like it isn’t going anywhere. But you are learning a lot, and seem to be moving forwards in certain aspects. Then it could be worth sticking with a project.

Are you learning all about landing pages, SEO, sales, marketing, cash flow, and onboarding?

Then, it could be worth sticking with a project.

But, if not, if you feel like you’re not learning or growing. And the project isn’t getting any sort of result. Is it time to shut it down and move on?

Conclusion: Knowing When To Quit

It’s extremely difficult to decide to stick with a business idea. Or quit, to bury it in your project graveyard (mine keeps getting bigger).

The internet is rife with advice and stories, telling you contradicting advice.

The problem with this advice is that it doesn’t give you enough context. Or follow up, what happens in 12 months, 5 years.

And I’ve not seen any good frameworks to help you decide if you should quit working on a project or not.

What I’ve found. After failing with many projects and ideas over the years. Is that there are 7 questions I can ask myself to help me decide if I should continue working on a project or to quit.

1. Do you want to work with/for the people you can help?
2. Do you see yourself doing it long-term?
3. Are you chasing the money – to sell it down the line
4. Have the costs got out of control
5. Can you change it to move forward
6. Is it a “golden goose” or “labour of love”
7. Are you learning & growing from it?

Your time is the only non-renewable resource you have.

Don’t waste it on a project that isn’t helping you work towards your dreams and goals.

I hope these questions help you find a project that does this.