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How Instagram’s co-founder knew it was time to quit
After selling Instagram to Meta for $1 billion, Mike Krieger teamed up with Kevin Systrom to build Artifact—a smart news app.
Despite initial hype, the app struggled to catch on. They soon hit a crossroads - continue building or shut it down?
To decide, they set clear experiments and a clear finish line:
“We made a list of what are the ideas that we still have in this space that we will feel really silly not having tried before shutting it down.”
“We wrote them down, we prioritized three big ones we wanted to try. After we tried them, we stepped back and asked: did it change the trajectory of the company?”
It didn’t. So they shut down Artifact, sold the IP to Yahoo, and moved on to different roles.
Mike and Kevin gave themselves permission to walk away — but only after giving it a real shot.
He warns founders and entrepreneurs about the danger of trying too long:
“I’ve seen entrepreneurs get stuck for years because they feel they owe it to themselves or their investors... but it’s not likely to shift the direction.”
“Being concrete — either with a date or a set of projects — helps you know when to move on.”
To him, it’s better to fail fast and move on, than to die a slow death. Don’t let sunk costs trap you for years.