This book touches on a hugely important and often overlooked concept in entrepreneurship.
Godin’s ‘Dip’ is that point of time where your idea or pursuit stops becoming easy/fun and the going gets rough. He is essentially saying that most people quit at the darkest point in the night, which happens to be right before the dawn.
On the flip side of the coin, sometimes the dawn is not going to ever come and you need to be able to recognize it and get the fuck out of this metaphor. Knowing when to actually quit is just as important as knowing when to press on. Godin goes deep on both of these ideas and really forces you to take a look at what you’re currently working on and evaluate if you’re in your own ‘dip’.
For me it struck a strong and painful chord as I reminisced on many of my previous projects I worked insanely hard one and then abandoned when it just didn’t ‘work’ right away. My ego likes to call it unvalidated ideas, or listening to the ‘market’. More likely I quit because I was afraid of really going for it and fighting on to make the project/company a success (and risk it not being in the end).
“The Dip” along with pretty much every other piece of writing by Seth Godin is a must read.
