Persistence… The Right Kind

Derek Sivers put it best, “if it’s not a hit, switch”. Persistence is a word used a lot when starting a new venture. For good reason. Most start-ups or new businesses never see the light the of day. It’s maybe because the founders weren’t persistent enough or gave up too easily on their idea, right? Wrong. The case is they didn’t change course enough times or worked hard enough to not only solve their own problems but other people’s as well. I think Derek sums it best in his set of videos for appsumo here.

The right kind of persistence involves getting multiple products out the door, testing them and learning about your market. It is not having one product idea and one product execution and “persisting” by trying to sell it hard, buying and constantly using push tactics to remind people that they should use your product. If people are not using your product and it feels like you’re pushing a boulder up a hill try something else. Pivot. Change course. Switch.

In my previous experience in co-founding Cameesa we had spent a couple of years constantly asking, what if? Example, What if we redesigned the interface? What if we added a couple of more features? What if we advertised more? We did end up undertaking a couple of major redesigns, we kept adding features, we did keep reaching out to potential customers and invested heavily in advertising. All of our efforts resulted in slight increases user membership, customers and traffic. We kept telling ourselves if only we commit more time or hustle a bit harder Cameesa will be the success we want it to be. We were wrong. What we should have done was pivoted and built another product.

What we didn’t realize was that we hit our local maximum. Joshua Porter and Andrew Chen refer to the to the local maximum in user experience terms. The point at which you’ve made every incremental change possible and what’s required is a complete redesign in order to get to the next level. A revolutionary change versus an evolutionary change. We had reached a local maximum with our idea and current model. What was needed was a fundamental change in our product and overall strategy.

Signs That You Should Switch

There are no hard and fast rules here. However, I would say if you’ve been live for a year and:

  1. 1. You have to work extremely hard to acquire a modest amount of customers. If it’s not, you are not on the right track. It should feel easy. When you develop something the market wants you typically spend way less time advertising. When you’re on the right track, you’ll know. Trust me. :)
  2. 2. Your core community helping promote your product is having difficulty referring their friends.
  3. 3. You’ve found that your community and team have a hard time communicating what the product is in simple terms in addition to its benefits.
  4. 4. Your customer acquisition costs are high and conversions are low.
  5. 5. You no longer have the passion for the product you once had.

If you experience any of the above symptoms its time to try something else.