Do you want to be rich or do you want to be in love?
A wise man once asked me “Do you want to be rich, or do you want to be in love?” Now, in any normal conversation this would seem like a weird question, but on this particular morning, it wasn’t. I was working on two sites at the time (Spotery and Dealery) Dealery was blowing up, and Spotery wasn’t. Dealery was bringing in money, and Spotery was bleeding money and resources.
In my conversation, I had mentioned I loved Spotery and worked on it for so long and Dealery launched in a week but was making money day 1, so I was asked something that stuck with me: “Do you want to be rich or do you want to be in love?”
It was a no brainer to anyone looking in, but to the person that thought of and created the two sites, it was a painful decision.
I knew my answer right away, but the decision to finally shut Spotery down was harder. All the nights working on it, all the days struggling, how could I just shut it down?
I used to refer to Dealery, as the ‘hot little sister’. There was no better description, she was hot and everyone loved her and wanted a piece. Spotery, was quieter, and only after visiting it a few times, did someone realize how it really could add value to their life. But alas, the hot little sister was growing in popularity and making money, and Spotery wasn’t.
So I shifted my focus to Dealery and cut all the people I had working on Spotery. I didn’t love that I had to make that decision, but I loved the potential with Dealery. And while it took me a little bit of time to finally let go of Spotery, I realized that without Spotery, there would be no Dealery. Everything about Dealery came from Spotery, the name, the logo, the color scheme, even the concept. (“Spotery for Deals”) We were able to launch Dealery in a week because of the infrastructure of Spotery. Once I realized that, my decision became much easier.
Today, I made the executive decision to shut down Spotery. We’re adding some exciting additions to Dealery, and I simply can’t defend Spotery anymore. There are bigger and better things with Dealery, and while the decision was hard at one point this year, it was easy today.
So if you’re contemplating whether you should pivot or not, my question to you is: “Do you want to be rich or do you want to be in love?
