Set Exit Conditions Up Front

Decide before you start what would tell you to stop

I am about to start [plan] and invest [time/money/people]. Help me set exit conditions before I begin: 1) List 3–5 observable signals that would mean the direction is wrong; 2) For each signal, set a checkpoint, a threshold, and who judges it; 3) Distinguish 'temporarily rough' from 'wrong direction', with a concrete example of each; 4) Say how to protect what has already been invested when exiting; 5) Offer a middle option: do not stop, but shrink the scope. No encouragement, and do not assume I will follow through.

How to use

Send the finished list to your counterpart to confirm; exit conditions only count if they are agreed before the start.

Good for

You're about to put in money or half a year that would hurt to lose but wouldn't kill you, and only you can judge whether it's working.
Someone on the team has already said “give it three more months,” and nobody can say what would have to be true in three months for it to count as working.

Not for

The stake is tiny and exit is nearly free (a weekend experiment) — writing exit conditions costs more than just trying it.
The goal is genuinely exploratory and shouldn't have a pass/fail (research, early long-form writing) — thresholds set too early stop you right before the most valuable surprise.

Example

Input

I'm planning to spend six months and CNY 200,000 on a paid template site for indie developers, with CNY 8,000 in fixed monthly costs.

What you get

You want observable signals (paid conversion below 1.5% by week 8, acquisition cost above 3× the average order value), each with a check date and a decider (you plus a friend who isn't in the project). It should also separate “temporarily rough” from “wrong direction”: zero traffic in the first three weeks is normal, six straight weeks of zero organic growth is not. It should finish with a smaller version: three templates only, one-time purchase.

Common mistakes

Writing exit conditions as a feeling — “stop when it doesn't feel right” — because “doesn't feel right” can always be reinterpreted as “push a bit longer.”
Setting exit conditions but no continue conditions: then every dip looks like a stop signal, and you restart and quit repeatedly in the middle.

Try tweaking it like this

Change “3–5 signals” to “3 conditions that must all hold to continue” — the frame flips from when to stop to what justifies continuing, which is much harder to fake.
Add “if I stopped in week 4, what would I lose and what could I keep” — you walk the retreat path before you need it.