One of the most dangerous blind spots for a startup is knowing when to keep pushing or pull the plug on an idea.

I talk with a ton of founders who either kill a good idea after one bad day, or they pour money into a dead one for months because they're "committed."

We ran hundreds of marketing tests when scaling Cal AI - you name it, we tried it.

New niches, new angles, and outside the box creators (most of them failed).

We needed a hard and fast rule for when to walk away, and here's the one we landed on:

Test any new niche 3 to 5 times, with different angles each time.

If you see any sign of life across those attempts, keep pushing. There's likely something there, you just haven't found the right version yet.

But if all you get is crickets, you move on. No questions asked.

This rule saved us from disaster on multiple occasions, especially when we tested niches like UFC and comedy creators.

Both audiences of these influencers were not the right product market fit, because people who consume this type of content just want to be entertained, not inspired to change their health habits.

The lesson is this: if you will fall in love with an idea the data says is dead, you'll want to run it a sixth or tenth time because you're sure it should work. 

But the market doesn't care what should work.

Ultimately, you have to determine the level of risk tolerance you’re comfortable with. 

3 to 5 tests ended up being the sweet spot for us - just enough to give an idea a fair shot, but not so much that it drained our energy or bank account.

So pick the number before you start and stick to it.

Then let the number make the call, not your mood that day.

- Jake