Following up from the previous post ‘How the “Entrepreneur Struggle Myth” May Becomes Excessive‘, the issue of when to quit on an entrepreneurial endeavor comes up front from the fact that struggling too much may be detrimental.
In the previously mentioned excellent piece “No More “Struggle Porn”” by Nat Eliason, he explains that “Working hard is great, but struggle porn has a dangerous side effect: not quitting. When you believe the normal state of affairs is to feel like you’re struggling to make progress, you’ll be less likely to quit something that isn’t going anywhere.”
This is complemented by a great post by Tim Berry, ‘You Have to Know When to Quit‘, based on the same piece. And of course he refers to the excellent little book by Seth Godin ‘the Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)‘. I love Tim Berry’s simple explanation of the choices in an entrepreneurial or creative venture: “There’s no virtue to persistence when it means running your head into walls forever. Before you worry about persistence, that startup has to have some real value to offer, something that people want to buy, something they want or need. And it has to get the offer to enough people. It has to survive competition. It has to know when to stick to consistency, and when to pivot. So persistence is simply what’s left over when all the other reasons for failure have been ruled out.”
Therefore, be persistent and work hard but only when you see progress and some pre-conditions are met that demonstrate that your project has some chances to become something workable!
