Should I Keep Going When There Are No Results?

When You Haven't Stopped, But Can't Tell If You're Moving

I sat at my desk again today. I haven't stopped. I wrote slightly better code than yesterday, refined some localized strings, and checked the server status. On the surface, it looks like I’m making incremental progress every day. But deep inside, the same question rears its head daily:

"If there are no visible changes, am I really heading in the right direction?"

The most cruel moment for a solo developer isn't facing a clear failure. Rather, it’s when a state of "silence"—where absolutely nothing happens—persists. It’s that period where traffic is stuck in a box, revenue is non-existent, and even clear indicators are nowhere to be found. When you enter this "vague zone," you instinctively start pulling out your calculator, weighing whether the time and effort you've poured in will ever return as a justifiable reward.

The Pain of a Period When Metrics Are Silent

As a former strategy consultant, I lived in a world proven by numbers. The success of a project had to be spoken through data, and every action had to be backed by logical evidence and expected returns. But the services I’m building now are far removed from such clear-cut metrics.

After deploying idealtypetest.com, what I faced wasn't a flashy dashboard. Aside from a few trickles of country-specific traffic, there was almost no way to know what users thought of the service or what was lacking. My inbox is empty, and the real-time metrics are beyond calm—they are desolate.

If it had succeeded, I would have thought about scaling; if it had failed completely, I would have packed up cleanly. But right now, it’s neither. This ambiguous stage—not a failure, yet not a success—is the most dangerous. Deciding whether to stop here or invest more time feels harder than writing any complex business logic.

Shifting the Question: "Should I?" vs. "Can I?"

After repeated agonizing, I decided to change the question I ask myself. Previously, I focused on the external result: "Is this service worth continuing?" Now, I focus on internal sustainability: "Can I sustain this?"

From a strategic standpoint, if you try to find a "reason to continue," the current colorless and odorless metrics become reasons to quit. But if you ask "Can I sustain this?", the answer changes. If I am keeping up my walking routine with Daon and Bao, and if I’ve recovered the mental stamina to write code for several hours a day, then I am in a "state where I can continue."

If you evaluate the present by external standards (revenue, traffic), it looks like a meaningless time. But if you evaluate it by internal standards (growth, maintaining routine), it is a period of condensing energy for the next step. Without shifting the standard, a solo developer can never endure this vague zone.

My Own Criteria for Strategic Quitting

Of course, blind persistence isn't the answer. False hope can sometimes be poisonous. So, paradoxically, I decided to set "criteria for quitting" in advance—to be able to stop without lingering regrets when the reasons to stop are sufficient.

My quitting criteria are as follows:

1. Is there absolutely no change in significant traffic or metrics over a set period (e.g., 6 months)?
2. Is there zero response even after a total pivot or trying entirely new approaches?
3. Does continuing this project seriously threaten my financial or mental survival?

The important thing is that the state I’m facing right now hasn't reached these criteria yet. While metrics are stagnant, they aren't non-existent, and there are still localization strategies and features I haven't tried yet. Most importantly, it is still within my capacity to handle. The fact that I don't have enough conviction to quit entirely has, paradoxically, become the "reason I should go a little further."

Results Arrive in Steps, Not Lines

We want to believe that effort reflects linearly in results—that if we invest 10, metrics will go up by 10. But in the real world, especially in the realm of global services, results often appear in "steps."

Underneath a long horizontal line where nothing seems to be changing, the code and strings we fix and refine every day accumulate as invisible data. Then, the moment you pass a certain "Tipping Point," the graph sharply breaks and shoots upward. The problem is that nobody knows when that inflection point will come.

That’s why it’s so confusing and difficult. You can’t tell if the current horizontal line is a step that’s about to end, or a cliff that will go on forever. But one thing is certain: the moment you stop, the possibility of going up that step becomes 0%.

Both Continuing and Stopping Are My Choice

Ultimately, the conclusion I’ve reached is that "continuing is also a choice." It’s not because I have great conviction. If there is even 1% more reason to continue than to stop, I trust that choice and take one more step.

There are times when stopping is the rational decision. That’s not a failure, but simply a reallocation of resources for a new beginning. But my intuition tells me it’s not yet time to make the decision to wrap things up. At some point, the day will come when I think, "Ah, this is as far as it goes." Or the day might come when I shout, "Wow, I’m so glad I kept going then!"

Until that moment of decision arrives, I intend to make the best choice I can. And that is to "go a little further."

Conclusion: To Those Walking in the Vague Zone

Are you, the reader of this post, also walking on a tedious horizontal line like me? The path where metrics are silent, the gazes around you are piercing, and you are filled with self-doubt.

When that happens, try changing the question. Not "Will this succeed?", but "Do I have a routine to survive today?" When a clear answer isn't visible, just writing today’s worth of code and taking today’s worth of a walk is enough.

I’ve decided to go a little further today. I don’t know what lies at the end. But at least when I look back later, I don’t think I’ll have the regret of saying, "I should have gone just a little further then." Whatever your choice is, I support the agony you went through to make it. Let’s go just a little further.