Your venture - is it time to apply grit or just quit?
Long black and some brainspo on a Friday morning inspired this post. It started with this Insead article, which outlines the results of research to test if using the Lean Startup Methodology helps start-ups achieve success – where arguably financial performance means success.
Their study showed that yes, this disciplined approach absolutely outperforms others, in their study they saw more dropouts, more pivots, and more revenue. Also that the scientific approach can improve entrepreneurial decision making. So founder capability also grew.
It does seem in the startup space, the success stories are anchored in ‘grit’. So many tales of ‘overnight success’ taking a decade or more to achieve which is inspiring and real. But having grit is only a virtue when you’re being gritty about the things that matter, that shift the dial or are in the right direction.
Digging deep to quit when the time is right, close up shop or change tack, that is commendable. Being gritty and pushing the proverbial uphill is just a waste of energy and time.
So the real question and skill is “Is it time for grit, or time to quit?”. When you’re kicking off in the early stages, being gritty about the market validation, financial models, securing customers, and developing a solution that a market wants, yes, get gritty as hell.
When things are flailing or you’re stuck in ‘meh’ mode, looking at if it’s time to quit is a smart move.
Aaron Harris of Y Combinator says that knowing when to quit your venture is more challenging than people realise, it’s not the easy option, they say “The “easiest” thing to do for a struggling company is to fall into zombie mode - neither growing nor truly dead.”
He then gives a series of questions to ask to help decide if shutting up shop the right thing to do.
Questions
1. Do you have any ideas left to grow your startup?
2. Can you drive that growth profitably?
3. Do you want to work on the startup that results from that growth?
4. Do you want to work with your co-founders on the startup that results from that growth?
There is also an implied sense of judgement and morality when we use the words ‘quit’ or ‘grit’ – with grit being ‘good’ and quit being ‘bad’. There are thousands of quotes that champion never giving up, pushing on, digging deep – they’re missing a key element though. That of actively choosing if dialling up the effort is the right thing to do. Throwing more weight behind a bad decision just makes the true cost greater and the fall to failure even bigger.
There’s likely a tie into how much more negativity impacts and motivates us than positive outcomes do but we’ll leave that for another day. For now, it’s about being clear that giving oomph to things that will help you achieve your goals, is a good call. Another good call is knowing when that is just not going to happen, no matter how much weight you throw behind it.
Saying no to the things that need to be left, leaves more room for the things that can really float your boat! Osar-Emokpae sums it up beautifully:
“Quitting is not giving up, it’s choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it’s realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time. Quitting is not making excuses, it’s learning to be more productive, efficient and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you so you can do more things that will bring you strength. ”
