2023, Chapter 3
When to Say “When”
I’ve mentioned that we work on a lot of things, and not all of them become products. This led to some smart readers asking a really interesting question. “When you you say, ‘when?’”
As in, when do you decide what you’re working on is bad business, that you should throw in the towel, that what you’re working on should be hidden deep in a dark hole and never seen by the public?
Ahhhhhhhhhhh…when I first read that question, I had an immediate answer:
when you have no energy for it.
And, if you’re not in business, you may want to stop reading right there. Because that’s the key takeaway. When do you stop? When you’re tired. When it’s no longer exciting. When you can’t muster any enthusiasm. When your get-up-and-go got-up-and-went.
You’re doubtful, I know.
“Sounds wayyy too simple, Stoddard,” you say.
But that’s really it.
Work on stuff you’re excited about. Put the other stuff on the pin.
Done.
The Two-Point Plan
Okay. I know you simply can’t abide a 190-word chapter, and you want more detail about what I mean by energy and excitement and lack thereof. So let’s get all business-y and create a simple, two-point plan to help you decide what kind of stuff is worth spending time on, and what needs to be shelved.
Aside: I’m being purposefully vague when using terms like “stuff,” because, unlike us, you may not be making physical products. You may be doing software or services or some other completely crazy thing I haven’t even imagined yet. The go/no-go is the same for all, I’d argue.
And, in true business-y form, let’s start with some backstory.
Here’s the thing: I’ve long diverted myself from
Stuff That Had To Be Done to
Stuff That’s Cool and Interesting, because it seems like I have a near-infinite capacity for the former.
- In the Sumo days, that meant working 60 hours a week on super-cool new products…and still having the energy and drive to go do my own speakers at Odeon. Both were exciting. Both were Cool and Interesting. So I did 80-100 hour weeks and didn’t even feel it, because I was having the time of my life. This included insane stuff like getting an idea and going back to the Sumo office at 10PM at night, and working until I was done, and forgetting to eat for an entire weekend at Odeon because the stuff I was working on was so exciting.
- In the Centric days, that meant more long hours, but hours spent seeing what we could do to push the limits of early web development, coming up with cool creative ideas, and completely bonkers diversions into stuff like virtual world development. Time was forgotten and days blurred by. Because what we were working on was sooooooo damn cool.
- In the early Schiit days, it meant even more long hours, using each evening after running Centric to re-learn what I’d forgotten about product development and come up with new ways to make stuff here in the USA, rather than farm it out somewhere else, and do it inexpensively, and do it cool, and minimalist, and game-changing.
If this sounds like a lot of hours, yes, it is. If you’re going to go into business, don’t expect it to look like the adult daycare of the late-stage tech boom. Expect it to look a lot more like the scrappy scary early gnarly Web 1.0 days, when nobody knew what they were doing, but everyone knew they were building a new world, making a difference, doing amazing things, and were willing to spend a ton of time doing it.
And, here’s the thing: when the energy left, then it became a job. A slog. A burden.
And things quickly slid to irrelevance.
- In Odeon’s case, when we failed to gain traction in a pre-online-commerce world, I stopped being excited about it. So I spent less time there. The other principals picked up on it, and in the absence of an economic reward, went their own ways. Money is important. More on that later.
- In Centric’s case, when Schiit began growing much, much larger than our old agency, proving some of my own ideas about marketing that had never gained traction with clients, I lost interest in fighting to push my ideas through corporate committees and went full-in on Schiit. Fighting negativity and dealing with, well, stupid people, is fundamentally corrosive and should be avoided. In the creative field it’s hard to do. The best creatives (better than me) can shepherd clients to accepting amazingly out-there creative. But it just made me tired, in the end.
- In Schiit’s case, the excitement and energy hasn’t left. I love what I do, I frequently work very late on really cool products, I wake up in the middle of the night and sketch weird ideas, I like going to shows and seeing people, I enjoy blathering in front of cameras and writing stuff like this…so far, so good. Of course, there are some products that aren’t so exciting, and that’s what we pull the plug on.
“So you’re really keying on this ‘energy’ thing,” someone says. “But what if I don’t have energy for anything? I don’t want to work late. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of night for anything.”
Then maybe you haven’t found what you should do. If you’re starting a business, and can’t put in the hours, you should probably consider something else.
As in, throw in the towel. Say ‘when.’
Yes, on the whole thing.
Yes, I’m serious.
Because if this isn’t what you want to do, if you don’t believe in it, if you can’t get up in the middle of the night for a wacky idea, if you can’t put in 16 hours in a day to finish up some thing you just had to get done, and still be too excited to sleep, then it may not be the thing you’re supposed to do.
Think about it. What do you love to do? What can you do forever? And still want to do more?
Yes. That’s it.
“Oh, but I don’t care that much about anything,” you say.
Well, that’s fine, too. Maybe starting a business isn’t for you. Or maybe you haven’t found what you want to do yet. Or maybe you need to do some ketamine therapy (only partially kidding, I haven’t done it, but I’ve seen some extremely, extremely marked changes from other people who’ve done it), or maybe I’m just a completely bizarre workaholic lunatic. All could be possible.
And so, in true business fashion, let’s sum up.
- When do you go for it? When you have infinite energy for it.
- When do you throw in the towel? When you can’t get out of bed for it.
Two points. Really simple. Applies to anything. Products, services…or entire businesses.
The More Points Plan
“Still wayyyy too nebulous, Stoddard,” you say. “Some people don’t work like that. And I’m getting old and I don’t have the energy I once did. And I thought we were talking about when to kill products in development, not touchy-feely holistic life-coach like stuff. Are you on something?”
Well, to clear things up, I’m not on ketamine, cocaine, pot, alcohol or any other kind of drug. As of the time of this writing, I’m sober.
And I know you want more points, more detail, more stuff you can chase down the road of certainty.
Aside: But you really can just stop at energy.
Okay. Fine. Let’s break it down. Because all of these micro-points can add up to sap your energy and make you not want to work on something.
Aside: but I’d argue that if you’re really, really excited about something, none of these micro-points might matter.
When I was asked about what would make us throw in the towel on a new product, I was also asked “what percentage of products in development make it to market?” The answer, was, surprisingly, most of them.
But...not all in a linear fashion.
We have many products that have gone through multi-year development cycles, where a lot of those years were spent sitting on a shelf. Heck, there are probably half a dozen products sitting on a shelf right now, waiting for the right time to be finished up, or finally let go.
So why do we have these pauses? Why do products sometimes sit on the shelf?
Because they’ve hit one or more of those micro-points.
Micro-points like this:
- Price Problems. If you can’t make something that people want to buy at a price they consider reasonable, you have a problem. So if you come up with, say, an insane $299 product that sounds like it’s a 100% winner…but the chassis, board, transformer, and other quotes come back so high it needs to be $599…that probably gets killed outright. At best, it goes on the shelf to gather dust and see if it sparks future ideas. We’ve had a couple of those, including a “real Class A” Asgard super-duper version that would cost as much as a Jotunheim. Or more. But would anyone buy it? Or would it be super confusing to have a “less capable” amp cost more.
- Production Feasibility Issues. If you’re worried about being able to make something, period, you got big problems. As in, if you can’t get the chips you need (ha) or if you’re taking on whole new types of manufacturing, or if you’re working at a scale you’ve never worked at before (think tiny), or if you don’t think your employees can all avoid killing themselves on 500V power supplies, or if you’re venturing into iffyness (like with apps) then nightmares of what the line might look like could scare you into spiking the idea. We’ve had several of those, including products using DSPs (ha ha), BGAs, electrostatic amps, etc.
- Reliability, Consistency, or Quality Concerns. Even if you think you can make it, can you make it well? All the time? We thought we could on Sol. That proved wrong. Well, maybe we could have, but it would have required changing the whole company around for a product that wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire in terms of sales. That one should have been spiked. Ah well.
- Market Changes. While you’ve spent your 2 years developing the Next Great Thing, did someone come out with something that’s Even Greater? Or have they decided they ain’t buying Next Great Things anymore? It’s a helluva time to show up with the best iPod when people have moved on to iPhones. You have to pay attention to what’s happening…and not be afraid to pull the plug if it turns into a stupid idea. We had a couple of those, too, including Eitr (should have been a limited production product or never made at all), and, in some ways, the planned Svala, which never happened.
- Lack of Coolness. Sounds like a stupid metric? Nah. It’s arguably even more important than price. If what you’re working on doesn’t do something that amazes you, that is better than the competition, that stands out in the market, that is, yeah, cool…why do it? That killed Svala, our planned dongle-dac, more than anything. Chassis was great, design was done, price was insanely low…but it didn’t really do anything better than any other dongle out there. And it didn’t sound as good as a Macbook Pro headphone jack. So we killed it. Or maybe it’ll sit on a shelf until we can make it cool. We’ll see. We’ve had a portable prototype on my desk for half a decade now. Still can’t see it as cool. Probably will never happen. That’s fine.
“So how do you know when to pause it or kill it?” someone asks.
Simple: everything is paused to start. If it stays paused long enough, it’s dead.
Pause something for too long, and market changes will get you. It’s automatic. That ancient portable sitting on my desk wouldn’t be anywhere near competitive today. It’d have to be entirely re-thought. And I’m just not too excited about it.
Full Circle
Excitement. Energy. I know, you think I’m completely nuts. And when I started outlining this chapter, I didn’t think I’d be going so hard on the two-point solution.
But, as I wrote some notes, you know, those solid business reasons for ending product development, I realized: those are really mostly excuses. Too expensive? Not feasible? Bah. There are almost always ways around those kinds of problems.
Buuuuuuut...
If you’re out of energy…
If you’ve already lost interest…
If your gut is telling you there’s a lot more interesting stuff to play with…
Then that’s it. Throw in the towel. You’re done.
And yes, it
really is that simple.
️
