[georgemcbay]

Your story is inspiring but you're making the very common mistake of assuming because you did X and were successful, X is the key to success.

I'm sure there are many others like you who had a "never give up" attitude and put it all on the line for their business and then still drove their companies through the ground, entering financial ruin and perhaps destroying relationships (marriages, etc).

"Never give up" is a good mantra to have, but in reality sometimes you should give up... for now. If you're giving up your current company because the model is unworkable and the brand has no intrinsic value, that's a perfectly valid thing to do.

Sometimes you need to "pivot" more than you really can within the box you've built for your current small company. Regroup in the working class and then start a new thing later... that isn't really "giving up" and sometimes it is 100% the right thing to do.