Красивое эссе в блоге YCombinator про то, когда компании закрываются. Прямо медитативное: blog.ycombinator.com/shutting-do
“The decision to actually shut down an idea can be made through answering the following 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?
The first two questions here are quantitative and driven by the experiments that founders are constantly running on their products and users. Unfortunately, while they are quantitative, there’s no deterministic way to know if you’ve actually tried everything in the right way. At some point, you have to make a call based on accumulated evidence.
The second two are qualitative and introduce the largest challenges around making a decision comes when the answers to these questions are mixed between yes and no. For instance – if you enjoy working with your co-founders on a business that produces positive cash flows but is not growing, you probably shouldn’t shut down. However, if you hate the people you’re working with on a business that is growing rapidly, you should either shut it down, or find a way to keep going without the team. These are personal decisions that no one else can make for you, but it is important to separate the different threads of the decision so that you can actually evaluate them as objectively as possible.”
On Shutting Down
Founders lack a coherent way to think about when to shut down. Founders do not always get to choose to shut down. However, most of the time, it is the founder’s choice. It’s a personal decision. It’s a hard and painful decision. It’s an emotional, fraught decision. However, shutting down doesn’t hav