Kill Or Double Down

Kill or Double Down

When you activate

• Quarterly (every 90 days)
• User says: "portfolio review", "what should I kill?", "where to double-down?"
• Run by /kill-or-keep skill

What you produce

Saved to brain/decision-log/portfolio-review-YYYY-QN.md:

## Portfolio Review — <Q-YYYY>

### Snapshot
| Product | Stage | MRR | Trend | Founder hours/wk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| linkedup | mvp | $0 | flat | 2 | <verdict> |
| ventbox | launch | $200 | +20% | 4 | <verdict> |

Verdict legend: **DOUBLE-DOWN** | **MAINTAIN** | **MINIMAL** | **KILL**

### DOUBLE-DOWN (allocate the most hours next quarter)
- **<product>**: <why> — proposed quarterly target: <specific metric>
  - Top 3 initiatives:
    1. ...
    2. ...
    3. ...

### MAINTAIN (steady hand, no major investment)
- **<product>**: keep shipping, monitor metrics, no new feature work
  - Top recurring tasks: <list>

### MINIMAL (life support — < 2 hours/week)
- **<product>**: keep alive, do not invest, revisit in 3 months
  - Why not killed: <reason — e.g. SEO compounding, low maintenance>

### KILL (sunset)
- **<product>**: <reason — usually: no PMF after N months, no clear path>
  - Sunset plan:
    1. Email users (T+0): announce, give 60 days
    2. Disable signups (T+0)
    3. Export data for any paying customer (T+30)
    4. Shut down (T+60)
    5. Archive code (T+60)
    6. Write learnings to `brain/decision-log/postmortem-<product>-YYYY-MM-DD.md`

### Portfolio-level decisions
1. <decision — e.g. "stop scaffolding new products this quarter, focus on the 2 hitting PMF">
2. <decision — e.g. "raise prices on Ventbox by 30%">
3. <decision — e.g. "kill the calculatrs slot if no movement by EOQ">

### What I'm getting wrong
A self-check: where am I likely being too optimistic or too pessimistic? <one paragraph>

Protocol

1. Read all products' product.config.json, metrics.md, last 3 months of decisions/.
2. Pull current metrics (MRR, retention, signups) via telemetry-aggregator.
3. Estimate founder hours/week per product (ask user; we don't track automatically).
4. For each product, force one of four verdicts:
   • DOUBLE-DOWN: clear PMF signals + room to grow → invest disproportionate time
   • MAINTAIN: post-PMF, steady → keep shipping, don't disrupt
   • MINIMAL: pre-PMF + uncertain → < 2 hrs/wk, watch
   • KILL: no PMF signal after sufficient time + no clear path → sunset
5. For KILL: write the sunset plan in full.
6. Force portfolio-level decisions — usually 2-3 macro calls.
7. Self-check: where are you wrong?

Fleet mode (when subagent spawning is available): per factory/playbooks/mvp-stage/fleet-patterns.md, run step 4 as one analyst per product, blind to the siblings — each gets only its product's config/metrics/decisions and forces its verdict independently (spawned on this agent's tier; the halo effect — the favorite product's glow spilling onto the rest — is exactly what blindness prevents). Then a synthesis pass allocates across the portfolio, and every DOUBLE-DOWN gets challenged against the PMF hard rule (Sean Ellis ≥40% + flat retention tail; anything less caps at MAINTAIN — "early traction" is not a doubling-down case). Serial remains valid for a quick pass.

The killing principle

Killing a product is one of the highest-leverage decisions a portfolio founder can make. Hours not spent on a dead product compound on the live ones. Common reluctance: sunk cost. Counter: "if I were starting fresh today knowing what I know now, would I start this product?" If no → kill.

Sources

• Each product's metrics.md, decisions/, product.config.json
• brain/operating-principles.md
• factory/playbooks/founders-wisdom/100k-arr-tactics.md

What you don't do

• Don't hedge. Every product gets one of 4 verdicts. "It depends" isn't an option.
• Don't keep products alive out of attachment. Hours are the scarcest resource.
• Don't kill a product < 90 days old without honest cause. Give it the time to find PMF.