"Never give up."

That's the advice you hear constantly. Push through. Be persistent. Grit wins.

It's sometimes true. It's sometimes terrible advice.

I've watched founders persist on doomed projects for years because they believed quitting was failure. I've also watched founders quit too early, right before things would have worked.

How do you tell the difference?

It's not easy. But there are signals.

The Cult of Persistence

We worship persistence in startup culture. The stories we celebrate are about founders who faced impossible odds and kept going. We venerate stubbornness.

What we forget: survivorship bias.

For every founder who persisted and won, there are dozens who persisted and lost. We just don't hear their stories because losing doesn't make for good content.

Persistence is a tool, not a virtue. Sometimes the smart move is to stop, redirect, or walk away entirely.

Signs It's Time to Quit

Here's when quitting is probably the right call:

No one wants it. You've talked to users, you've shipped, you've marketed, you've iterated—and still nobody wants it. Not "nobody knows about it." Nobody who knows about it wants it.

You don't want it. You've lost interest. The problem doesn't excite you anymore. You're showing up out of obligation, not energy. This matters more than you think—building for yourself only works if you still care.

The market changed. The problem you were solving no longer exists. Technology shifted. Competitors won. The window closed.

The economics will never work. You've crunched the numbers. Even in the best case, at maximum scale, the business doesn't make sense.

Notice what's not on this list: a failed launch, negative feedback, slow growth. Those aren't quit signals—they're normal.

Signs to Keep Going

Here's when persistence makes sense:

A small group loves it. Not uses it—loves it. If 10 people think it's indispensable, you have something. The question is whether you can find more of those people.

Each iteration gets better feedback. The direction is right, even if the execution isn't there yet. Users are saying "almost" and "if only."

You're still learning and energized. The problem still fascinates you. You see paths forward. You wake up wanting to work on it.

The problem is real, just hard. Some problems take time. Some markets are slow to adopt. Difficulty isn't the same as impossibility.

The Pivot vs. Quit Decision

Sometimes the answer isn't "keep going" or "quit." It's pivot.

Pivot: Same skills, same team, same core asset—different problem or different approach. You're redirecting, not abandoning.

Quit: Full stop. Close the project. Move on to something entirely new.

Pivot when the core insight is sound but the execution or market is wrong. Quit when the whole thing is wrong.

How to tell? Ask yourself: is there anything here worth preserving? If yes, pivot. If no, quit.

How to Quit Well

If you decide to quit, do it properly:

Tell your users. If you have users, they deserve to know. Give them time to export data or find alternatives. Don't just disappear.

Document what you learned. Write it down. What worked? What didn't? What would you do differently? This prevents you from repeating mistakes.

Extract anything reusable. Code, content, relationships. Some of what you built might serve the next thing.

Give yourself permission to grieve. Quitting something you cared about hurts. That's normal. Feel it. Then move on.

The Shame of Quitting

Here's the part nobody talks about: quitting feels like failure.

Even when it's the right decision, walking away from something you invested in triggers shame. You feel like you're giving up. Like you weren't good enough.

This is wrong, but it's hard to shake.

The truth: every successful builder has a trail of abandoned projects. The products you know them for are the ones that worked. You don't see the ones they quit.

Quitting isn't failure. Quitting is learning that this particular thing, at this particular time, in this particular way, wasn't the path.

Quitting as Strategy

Here's the reframe: quitting isn't giving up. It's choosing.

You have finite time and energy. Every day you spend on the wrong thing is a day you're not spending on the right thing.

Quitting bad ideas makes room for good ones. Quitting dead projects frees energy for live ones.

The goal isn't to persist no matter what. The goal is to build something that works. Sometimes that means stopping, learning, and starting something better.

The Question to Ask

When you're stuck between quitting and persisting, ask yourself:

"If I were starting fresh today, knowing what I know now, would I start this project?"

If yes, keep going.

If no, you have your answer.

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