What do you do with a working product you no longer care about?

Before you close it, look for somebody who cares about its customers more than you do, and hand it over properly. Between keeping a product and closing it there's a third box, and it's the one I've learned about the hard way.

The tracker that met every number

My fees tracker for small language schools met every number I set for it. Day 30, met. Day 60, met. School owners could see on one page which students owed what, and stop chasing it on paper.

By its fourth month I'd realised I didn't care about language schools. Nothing was wrong with them. They were pleasant, organised people who paid on time. (Rarer, in small software, than it should be.) I'd assumed the interest would come with the customers. It didn't.

I skipped its slot one week, then the next, then the one after. My attention rule fired, and I did what it said: notice, a refund for the current month, an export that worked without me. It was the right way to close a product. It was the wrong decision.

The schools didn't need it closed. They needed it run, by somebody who cared about language schools. Every one of its customers paid for my boredom by going back to paper.

Both directions

Years earlier I'd kept a driving instructors' tool alive for 3 years after I knew it would never grow. I've now made the mistake both ways. Keeping a dead product too long costs you. Closing a working one costs them.

Before you close a working product

• Ask who would want it: a person in that trade, a consultant who serves it, a small firm already selling to those customers.
• Write the handover the way you'd write the "if I'm away" page: where it lives, what runs, what needs a person.
• Tell the customers who will look after them, and when.

I'll be honest: I've never done a handover. This is the question I should have asked, written down so I ask it next time.

The Second Product has the chapter.