Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Project Management

Best to Cut Your Losses Early: Lessons from the Failure of Quibi

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Streaming startup Quibi is shutting down barely six months after going live. The Wall Street Journal reports,

Founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and Chief Executive Meg Whitman decided to shut down the company in an effort to return as much capital to investors as possible instead of trying to prolong the life of the company and risk losing more money.

Best to Cut Your Losses Early Quibi (short for “quick bite”) was a late entrant into a crowded marketplace, and its short-form serial format aimed at short attention spans failed to get traction with teenagers and young adults amid the pandemic. The Week was puzzled by Quibi’s decision to not allow people to watch it on their television:

Among the early criticism directed at Quibi was the fact that it was mobile only, and users couldn’t watch the app’s original shows on their TVs. This was especially problematic at a time when many people were no longer commuting to work due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were, therefore, not in need of short content to watch on the go.

At heart, Quibi was just another fast food joint with the same menu as the rest. The Guardian wondered if anyone would give Quibi the time of day:

Quibi’s content felt less revolutionary than underbaked, slapdash concepts sledgehammering the viewer with abrupt hits of celebrity. The overarching theme was of celebrity names without thinking through what they would be doing that is interesting or novel. It offered little marginal benefit to the free celebrity fare on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or TikTok. Why pay for Quibi, when “if you want snackable Chrissy Teigen content, her social media provides that for you without this sort of hackneyed, first-thought courtroom set-up.”

Quibi’s only bona fide USP was its potential to piggybank on Katzenberg’s deep connections in the Hollywood establishment for content.

Idea for Impact: Investing money, energy, and time into something that’s not working is dreadful to admit, but it’s essential to come to terms with things that don’t go as planned, and your high hopes are dashed. Don’t hold on to an idea that doesn’t pay off soon enough. Best to cut your losses early—you’ll have the least sunk costs and the fewest emotional attachments.

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A Sense of Urgency

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The most successful managers I know are highly attentive of their colleagues’ sense of urgency and incessantly adapt to them.

In his excellent Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson evokes Apple CEO (and operations wizard) Tim Cook’s responsiveness and a sense of urgency:

At a meeting early in his tenure, Cook was told of a problem with one of Apple’s Chinese suppliers. “This is really bad,” he said. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes later he looked at an operations executive sitting at the table and unemotionally asked, “Why are you still here?” The executive stood up, drove directly to the San Francisco airport, and bought a ticket to China. He became one of Cook’s top deputies.

Idea for Impact: Bosses and customers often respond more positively to your focus on creating a sense of urgency before emerging problems erupt in a crisis.

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Overwhelmed with Things To Do? Accelerate, Maintain, or Terminate.

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Overwhelmed with Things To Do

If you are overwhelmed by extensive demands on your time or by the number of projects that seem permanently stuck on your to-do list, here’s a technique to organize your projects more effectively.

Make a table with three columns: “Accelerate Mode,” “Maintain Mode,” and “Terminate Mode” and classify your projects.

  • “Accelerate mode” projects have the potential for significant benefits and therefore will need additional investment in time, effort, and resources.
  • Projects that you can sustain at the present pace and projects where additional investments may not necessarily translate to larger payoffs go in the “maintain mode.”
  • Choose the “terminate mode” whenever in doubt, especially for projects that have been lingering in the “someday I will get to” and “maybe” categories. Also, terminate those projects that are on your list because you feel that you should do but need not.

One of the key characteristics of successful people is to recognize and invest their resources in projects that really matter and to do everything else adequately enough.

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