I kept a project alive for fourteen months past the point where the data said to stop. Not because I had evidence it would work. Because I had invested too much to let go.
The project was a product line extension that was not gaining traction. The idea was sound. The execution was struggling. After the first six months, we had a fraction of the customers we needed to break even. After twelve months, the trend line was clear. But I kept adjusting, kept tweaking, kept telling myself the next iteration would be the one.
It was not.
When I finally killed it, I calculated the cost. Not just money — though that was significant. Time. Focus. Opportunity cost. The other projects that did not get attention because this one was consuming all my energy.
Kill or Commit exists because of that experience. It is a structured decision framework that removes emotion from the question every founder dreads: should I keep going, or should I stop?
Why This Decision Is So Hard
Two psychological forces make this decision nearly impossible without a framework:
Sunk cost fallacy. You have already invested time, money, and identity in this project. Walking away means “wasting” that investment. Your brain codes stopping as loss, and loss aversion is one of the strongest forces in human psychology. You will endure irrational amounts of pain to avoid admitting a loss.
Identity attachment. For founders, projects are not just business activities — they are extensions of identity. “I am the person building X.” Killing the project means killing part of your identity. That is viscerally painful in a way that financial loss alone is not.
The framework does not eliminate these forces. It acknowledges them and works around them by replacing emotional evaluation with structured criteria. You do not ask “how do I feel about this project?” You ask specific questions with measurable answers.
The Kill or Commit Scorecard
Seven questions. Score each one honestly. The total tells you what to do.
Question 1: Is There Market Signal? (Score 0-3)
Market signal means external evidence that people want what you are building. Not your belief. Not your vision. Evidence.
- 0: No paying customers. No meaningful engagement. No inbound interest.
- 1: Some interest (email signups, social engagement) but no revenue or commitment.
- 2: A few paying customers or committed users. Growth is slow but exists.
- 3: Clear demand. Waiting list, growing revenue, or strong retention metrics.
Be brutal here. “People said they liked it” is not market signal. People paying money or investing time consistently is market signal.
Question 2: Is the Trend Direction Positive? (Score 0-3)
Look at the last three months. Not all-time numbers — the recent trajectory.
- 0: Metrics are declining or flat.
- 1: Metrics are flat but stable.
- 2: Metrics are growing slowly.
- 3: Metrics are growing consistently or accelerating.
The trend matters more than the absolute numbers. A project with five customers and a growth rate of 30% per month is healthier than a project with fifty customers and a declining trend. At Startup Burgenland, I tracked this across every startup. The trend at month three was the strongest predictor of success at month twelve.
Question 3: Do You Know Why It Is Struggling? (Score 0-3)
A diagnosed problem is solvable. An undiagnosed problem is a guess.
- 0: No clear understanding of why the project is not working.
- 1: General theories but no validated diagnosis.
- 2: Clear hypothesis about the bottleneck, backed by some evidence.
- 3: Specific, validated understanding of the problem with a concrete plan to fix it.
If you score 0 or 1 here, stop everything and diagnose before making the kill-or-commit decision. You cannot decide whether to continue if you do not understand what is wrong. Run the 5-conversation sprint with your current and churned customers to find out.
Question 4: What Is the Opportunity Cost? (Score 0-3)
What else could you do with the time, money, and focus this project consumes?
- 0: No other opportunities. This is the only thing on the table.
- 1: Vague alternatives but nothing concrete.
- 2: One or two specific alternatives that could generate better results.
- 3: Clear, validated alternatives with higher potential than the current project.
This is the question founders forget to ask. Committing to a struggling project is not just committing resources to this project — it is withholding resources from everything else. The subtraction audit can help you see the full picture of what you are spending and where.
Question 5: Can You Define a Time-Boxed Experiment? (Score 0-3)
If you commit, what specifically will you do differently, and how long will you try it?
- 0: No clear plan. “We will keep trying” is not a plan.
- 1: Vague idea of what to change.
- 2: Specific changes planned with a loose timeline.
- 3: Defined experiment with specific metrics, specific actions, and a hard deadline (30-90 days).
If you cannot score at least a 2 here, commit is not the right answer — because committing without a plan is just hoping, and hoping is not a strategy.
Question 6: Is the Team Still Engaged? (Score 0-3)
If you work alone, this is about your own energy. If you have a team, it is about theirs.
- 0: Burned out, disengaged, or resentful.
- 1: Going through the motions. Compliant but not enthusiastic.
- 2: Engaged but tired. Willing to continue if there is a clear plan.
- 3: Energized and aligned. Belief in the direction remains strong.
A team at 0 or 1 cannot execute a turnaround. Even a perfect strategy fails with an exhausted team. If the score is low, the project may need a pause more than a kill-or-commit decision.
Question 7: Would You Start This Project Today? (Score 0-3)
Knowing everything you know now — the market, the challenges, the competition, the effort required — would you start this project from scratch today?
- 0: Absolutely not.
- 1: Probably not.
- 2: Maybe, with significant changes.
- 3: Yes, with confidence.
This question cuts through sunk cost. It asks about the future, not the past. The money and time you have already spent are gone regardless of what you decide. The only question that matters is: from this point forward, is this the best use of your resources?
Reading the Score
0-7: Kill. The evidence is clear. The project is not working, you do not know why, and the alternatives are better. Killing it is not failure — it is resource reallocation. The time and energy you free up can go to something with stronger signal.
8-14: Conditional Commit. There is enough signal to justify one more effort — but only with a defined experiment, a hard deadline, and clear success criteria. If the experiment fails, kill it at the deadline. No extensions.
15-21: Commit. The fundamentals are sound. The project is struggling, not dying. Fix the diagnosed problem, execute the plan, and give it the focus it deserves.
What Happens After You Kill
Killing a project is not the end. It is a transition. Here is how to handle it:
Capture the lessons. What did you learn about the market, the product, the process? Write it down. These lessons reduce the cost of the next project because you will not repeat the same mistakes.
Communicate clearly. If customers, partners, or team members are involved, tell them directly. Not a vague “we are pivoting.” Instead: “We have decided to stop this project because [specific reason]. Here is what happens next.”
Redirect immediately. Do not take a mourning period. The energy you spent keeping a struggling project alive is now available. Point it at the next best opportunity within a week.
Update your systems. Remove the project from your Sunday CEO Review. Update your revenue engine to reflect the change. Clean the slate.
What Happens After You Commit
Committing is not the same as continuing. Committing means executing a specific plan with specific metrics and a hard deadline.
Define the experiment. What exactly will you change? Not “try harder” — that is not a variable. Specific changes: new pricing, new audience, new channel, new feature, new messaging.
Set the deadline. 30, 60, or 90 days. No more. At the deadline, run the scorecard again. If the score has not improved meaningfully, kill it.
Set the success criteria. What specific number would need to be true for you to continue? Revenue target, customer count, conversion rate, retention metric. Write it down before you start the experiment so you cannot rationalize the result later.
Focus ruthlessly. During the commit period, the struggling project gets your best attention. Not divided attention. If you commit half-heartedly, the experiment is invalid — you will not know whether the project failed or whether your effort did.
Takeaways
Kill or Commit replaces emotional attachment with structured evaluation. Seven questions. A clear score. A defined action based on the result.
The hardest part is not the framework. The hardest part is being honest in the scoring. Your brain will push you toward higher scores because it does not want to face the loss. Fight that instinct. Score based on evidence, not hope.
Every month you spend on a project that should have been killed is a month you did not spend on the project that could have succeeded. The framework gives you the clarity to tell the difference. Use it. Trust it. And when the score says kill, kill it — and redirect your energy toward something that deserves it.
