Kill or scale a side project — decide by the hourly rate
Deciding on gut (sunk cost, revenue bias) gets it wrong. A four-box frame using per-project hourly rate + a four-week trend to kill, scale, or watch — and when rate isn't everything.
When you run several side projects, the hardest decision isn’t the next feature — it’s what to kill. And most people decide on gut. Gut is usually wrong.
Why gut is wrong
- Sunk cost — you can’t drop it after a year in, even though that year isn’t coming back
- Revenue bias — you can’t kill the top earner, even when it’s the worst use of your time
- Novelty bias — you abandon what works to chase the new idea
The lens: rate + trend
Whether to kill or scale shows up in the per-project hourly rate (revenue ÷ hours), not the revenue. And not a single snapshot — the trend. $8/hr this week reads very differently if it’s been climbing for four weeks.
The four-box frame
- High rate + trending up → scale. Put more time here
- Low rate + trending up → watch. It may be taking off
- High rate + trending down → investigate. Something is cooling
- Low rate + flat or down → kill or pivot hard
The four-week rule
Don’t decide on one week. Side-project revenue swings with launches, seasons, and luck. A four-week trend keeps you from emotional calls — killing on a bad week, going all-in on a good one.
So — my case
My paid templates sat at $4/hr, flat for four weeks. It was my top-revenue side, so I’d been clinging to it — but the rate made it obvious. I killed it and moved that time into an app earning $28/hr. A month later my overall rate was up, with revenue almost flat.