If you are not cash flow positive, *including being able to pay staff a reasonable salary,* within 2 years based on real product shipments, then STOP! Shutdown, liquidate, just walk away… I spent 9 years making this mistake.


    • People tend to fall in love with an idea, which makes them irrationally commit to that idea for years even when all the signs say that it’s not such a great idea.

  • I’m doing it for 2 years. If I drop now, will I avoid 7 years of pain? Or will just start another idea, be there for 2 years and thing about it again and drop, again?

    Stick with what you feel better, bro. Dropping or not. You just aren’t good enough yet. But your best chance is to keep shipping 🙂

  • “Can you share more details about your product, market or financials?”

    We went into the security space (BTW ‘security’ is a tar-pit market – the more you struggle the deeper you sink) with commitment from a Fortune-50 customer to adopt our product company-wide. I bought it hook-line-and-sinker. Long story short the corporate security team did mandate our product, but divisions just ignored them. We ended up having to slog thru the entire sales cycle with each site. Ugh. Also took us longer to build the product.

    With 20-20 hindsight I should have not have been “loyal” to potential customers and prospects. If people were not going to buy, then no shame in walking away. I was also believing my own tech BS. That’s always a bad sign. If I ever start another company (possible) I will not do so without a trusted advisor who will call me on bull-shit like that. Could be a funder, mentor, former colleague, coach, et al. But I really really want to have someone I can go to and ask them to give me the unvarnished truth in a constructive and safe fashion.

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