How to abandon a project without regrets

I used to be way too attached to my work.

Back when I ran a design sprint agency, every workshop ended with a ritual that made my stomach twist: we'd all stick our solutions up on the wall for everyone to see. Then came the vote. One idea survived, and the rest quietly died.

The junior designer in me would watch, hoping my concept would get picked. Sometimes it did, but often, my masterpiece (at least, in my head) ended up ignored. And honestly? It sucked. It felt like a tiny heartbreak every time. I used to spend way too much energy clinging to what I’d made, replaying the rejection in my head.

Over time, I realized this attachment was a trap. It wasn't just bad for my mood; it actually got in the way of better solutions and faster progress.

So I started telling myself: "Once the ideas are up on the wall, they belong to the room. Not to me." That little shift changed everything. When I launch projects now, I tell clients the same thing: “This belongs to the market, not to us. It’s no longer our idea.”

That simple reframe hasn’t just saved me from a lot of unnecessary drama. It’s also made me a better builder.

Of course, it’s much easier said than done. We’re human. If you care enough to read this, odds are you pour real energy into your ideas because you genuinely want to serve people better. But sometimes caring a little less about your own creations is the only way to protect yourself from bad decisions.

And it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s had to learn how to let go. DevOps engineers wrestled with almost this exact same problem, but with servers instead of sketches.

How DevOps engineers learned to manage servers without the drama

DevOps teams once treated servers like pets. Each server had a unique name, got special care when something went wrong, and required hours of maintenance. It was exhausting.

Then came the cattle approach: servers became interchangeable. They had numbers instead of names. Breakdowns didn't trigger panic. They just replaced them and moved on. Less attachment, less hassle.

Your products can benefit from the same mindset shift

When you're too attached to a project, this is what usually happens:

• You spend months obsessing over tiny details
• You struggle letting go, even when it's clearly not working
• You ignore market signals, convinced "users just don't get it yet"

What do you end up with? A high-maintenance headache that nobody wants.

Adopting the cattle approach saves your sanity (and your startup)

Take Basecamp, for example. Before they became Basecamp, the team at 37signals was actually a web design agency. They built Basecamp as an internal tool to manage client projects, but once they saw how useful it was for others, they didn’t cling to their agency business or the dozens of smaller projects they’d built before. They shifted focus, let go of their old work, and doubled down on the product that showed real traction.

That's a textbook example of letting the market decide what survives (and not getting sentimental about pet projects).

Here’s how you start treating projects like cattle

1. Build rapid experiments instead of polished solutions
   • Use no-code tools to run quick tests (think in days, not months)
   • If a test doesn't perform, cut it fast—don't drag it out
   • Run multiple experiments at once to find what sticks (if you have bandwidth)
2. Cut the emotional ties early
   • Avoid naming your features
   • Don’t polish your design until users confirm there’s value
   • Set clear kill criteria and follow through
3. Measure real outcomes, not effort
   • Focus on user behavior instead of hours invested
   • Set clear, measurable success metrics before building
   • Shut down anything that doesn't hit your benchmarks

Let’s make this even more practical with a simple experiment template and use a whacky idea for demonstration.

Quick experiment template

1. Hypothesis statement

Write what you expect to happen, and why.

Example: “If I show early-stage founders a landing page for a browser extension called ‘Focus Tamagotchi’—where your digital pet thrives when you stay focused, and gets sad (or dies) when you procrastinate—at least 5% will sign up for early access. If that happens, it tells me there’s genuine curiosity around a quirky accountability tool.”

2. Kill criteria

Decide upfront what results will tell you to walk away. This is your sanity-saver.

Example: “If less than 5% of visitors sign up after 200 visits, I’ll shelve the Tamagotchi idea and move on.”

3. Action plan

Specify your next move based on the results.

Example:

• If the sign-up rate is over 5%, I’ll reach out to those users and learn about their focus struggles before building anything.
• If it’s under, I’ll give the Tamagotchi a dignified digital burial and try the next idea.

This kind of template lets you test even the weirdest ideas quickly, before you get emotionally invested.

Copy and paste the template below into Notion or your favorite note-taking tool:

Let’s put this into action right now

Take your current project and set measurable goals to hit in the next 30 days.

If you miss even one, commit to pivoting or shutting it down. No exceptions, no excuses.

Remember, successful founders aren't necessarily the most innovative; they're the quickest to let go of dead-end ideas.

Sometimes, you need to let go of something you've built so there's room for something better to grow and get closer to the idea you truly want.