Innovation is a startup’s lifeblood. Without it, you stagnate. You get outpaced. Your pitch decks start to sound like warmed-over buzzword soup. So founders create pipelines. They form squads. They launch beta features and side products and experimental tools.
But somewhere along the way, the pipeline becomes a museum. Old experiments hang around. Pet projects linger. Resources get quietly drained by “low-priority initiatives” no one quite knows how to shut down. The result? A team that’s always building, but rarely shipping anything that matters.
What you need is not just a roadmap. You need a kill button.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
– Michael Porter
(Also known as the patron saint of product reviews with a sharp edge.)
The Hidden Cost of Zombie Projects
When you lack a mechanism for killing weak ideas, you do not just lose speed. You lose focus, clarity, and eventually trust.
Teams start to hedge. Nobody wants to criticize someone else’s prototype. Leadership lets “one more sprint” drag into a quarter. And soon, half your resources are tangled in work that no one can justify anymore.
And yes, it is often the founder’s idea that should have been killed first.
Tip: Building a Pipeline That Doesn’t Become a Graveyard
- Set kill criteria at the start
Every experiment should come with a “kill threshold.” If it does not hit X within Y time, it ends. No debates. No politics. - Review monthly, not quarterly
Waiting until the end of a quarter to review pipeline projects is how things fester. Keep the list short, visible, and regularly challenged. - Separate value from effort
Just because your team spent two months on something does not mean it deserves two more. Time spent is not proof of potential. - Reward endings
Make it culturally acceptable-even celebrated-for a PM or engineer to shut something down. It means they are doing their job.
Table: Healthy Pipeline vs. Innovation Swamp
| Pipeline Trait | High-functioning System | Swamp of Sunk Cost |
| Project entry criteria | User need or strategic gap | Founder idea or internal whim |
| Time to validate | Measured in weeks | Open-ended “let’s see” timelines |
| Decision triggers | Metrics and user behavior | Team sentiment and politics |
| Visibility of pipeline | Transparent and reviewed | Fragmented across docs and heads |
| % of projects killed | 50% or more | Rarely tracked or acknowledged |
FAQ
Q: Isn’t it demoralizing to kill projects?
A: No. It is demoralizing to work on things that do not matter and then pretend they do. Teams feel energized when they can focus and when their effort creates visible impact.
Q: How do I kill something that came from the top?
A: Create a rule: no sacred cows. If it is on the board, it is killable. If you, as the founder, cannot let go of your favorite toy feature, you are not building a company-you are building a shrine.
A Thought Experiment
Look at your innovation pipeline right now. Imagine you had to cut 50 percent of it by the end of the day.
What would stay? What would go? And why haven’t you already made that decision?
A kill button is not about being negative. It is about being disciplined. It is about creating a culture that values focus over filler, outcomes over output, and reality over hopeful optimism.
If your pipeline has no off-ramp, then it is not a pipeline. It is a slow-moving trap. And your best ideas are buried under the ones you are too polite-or too proud-to shut down.
Push the button. It is how great companies stay great.
