Making a product for myself — Part 2
Before starting… When to quit?
A Little Recap
After 10 years of building technology products in different sectors, I came to the realization that I never created something with me as the user and decided to document the process hoping that it will clarify my methodology, and hopefully, be useful for people that want to (or are) making their own products.
To catch the story from the beginning, go to Making a product for myself — Part 1: The resolution.
Let’s start! Wait! Before starting …
One of the biggest risks of starting any project is quitting before it sees the light of the day. I recommend you to read 3 key things to finish what you’ve started, to get some concepts of what can be helpful to take this project to the end goal.
Mainstream belief says that quitting is bad. Losers quit and winners don’t. I don’t believe that is the case. I do believe though that sometimes we quit for the wrong reasons. So, the first thing we will address is: when to quit?
When to quit
First, when do you feel like quitting? We do not feel like quitting when it is exciting, when we are in flow. We feel like quitting when it gets hard, when it gets boring, when it stops being new, when people don’t seem to care about it, when it is making you poor (poorer), etc. If you feel like quitting at other times, tell me at the comments. At this point we will tell our selves: “This sucks, I should quit”. If we start to feel like quitting quite often, we probably will.
As explained by Seth Godin in his book The dip, winners quit all the time. Given our limited resources (money, time, energy, attention, etc.), we need to strategically quit to reallocate our resources to a much better opportunity. According to him: the only opportunity worth investing is the opportunity to become #1.
“If you’re not gonna get to number 1, you might as well quit now.”
Seth Godin
I don’t think being #1 is (or should be) THE GOAL for everybody, even in very narrow areas. I think each person deserves to have the freedom to set the bar as high as they want and commit to it.
Instead, I think the only opportunity worth investing is the opportunity to achieve your goal #1. My goal “número 1” was and still is to become an inventor whose creations positively impact the lives of at least 1 million people (a bit trivial, but it is what it is).
So, when I should quit? When I have objective evidence that what I’m doing now is not helping me to achieve this goal.
How this is helping me achieve my #1 goal
As an inventor, my core tool won’t be my developers skills nor my product design capabilities nor my faulty go-to-market strategies. My main tool will be the process that I follow when making a product. It should be the thing that I constantly iterate and mostly attempt to improve.
Stupidly, after 10 years, I never wrote it down. This is the chance.
My Quitting Contract
It will be helpful to predefine measurable reasons that will tell me when to quit. So, when the moment of “ I feel like quitting” arrives, I will have a framework to make an objective decision not an emotional one.
So, I will quit if …Well, I don’t find a reason to quit at the current scope of this project: making something useful for me in my free time and document it.
Whenever I’ll feel like quitting, I’ll go back to this and tell myself there is no objective reason to quit at this because it will be making me a better inventor.
I will need to revaluate this assumption at the end of this project to redefine my quitting criteria. Maybe, it will be time to quit, or who knows, to persist.
Hope you can find this little reflexion useful.
In the next post, we will work on defining where to start.
I’m so sorry
This post was due weeks before. I had to go back to Peru (where I’m from) to run some paperwork and being there I decided to spend my free time with family and friends (not working). And coming back home, Peru soccer team classified to the Copa America final against Brazil at Maracanã stadium (very likely the most emblematic soccer stadium there is). So, I went to Rio with my wife (who is Brazilian) to be part this historic moment. Here is a pic from that moment.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what do you think in the comments below and if you liked this, hit the recommend button!
Find me on twitter as @adolfovaldi.
If you want to get notified when there is a new post, please suscribe!
Adolfo Valdivieso is passionate about creating technology that helps people. Awarded as a MIT TR35 Innovator under 35. Recipient of full scholarship for Singularity University’s graduate program, at NASA (Silicon Valley). Bs. in Physics (Summa Cum Laude). +10y making technology products.
