May 12, 2009 —
One of our ideas launched in March of ’06. As of today, we’ve made $0 on the service. I go back and forth on the [lack of] merit in subsidizing one effort (Feed Rinse) with another (Electric Pulp,) but, as a development shop, we have to be willing to put time into exploring ideas.
Feed Rinse took 11 days from concept to launch, so you could say we haven’t invested much time. By now, the more significant cost has been ongoing maintenance. With 17,000 users and 75,000 filters, the service requires a fair amount of human response and server resources. But, we put in just enough effort to sustain it. Beyond that, the idea rots.
We have a small handful of these ideas out in the wild. Bearing our name. Dying.
Knowing that we go into these ideas with no expectations makes it hard to feel like they’ve failed, but when the emails come in from users asking of future plans or suggesting improvement, it’s hard not to feel like maybe it’s time to just pull the plug. Let the thing die with some dignity.
We collaborated with Undercurrent on another site called Viral or Spiral a while back. After a few months watching it host only the traffic we actively pushed to it, we decided to shut it down. And when I say “we,” I mean one of the “others.”
Knowing when to kill an idea is tough. I’m not even sure I get there on my own. But looking at our ideas — those that went somewhere, those that died, those that are dying — we knew within 6 months if each was going to make it.
Maybe you can’t force the same six-month or one-year term on every idea you pursue, but think how motivating it could be to have a kill date on everything you do. I think it’s going to be my new thing.