Why Did Framer Pivot Instead of Selling?

Jorn van Dijk says the lunch came down to three options: quit and give the money back, try to sell what was left after expenses, or pivot. They had already sold their first company, Sofa, to Facebook, so selling again did not look appealing, even if a sale might return money to investors. Money was still in the bank, which made quitting odd, because the next step would be starting another company. Koen Bok brought the technology built over the first four years, and websites were where they landed.

Pushing after the point where they should have stopped does not really work. A startup either hits a nerve, so people get excited and start using it, and marketing and the rest of the company can grow from that spark, or the spark is missing and the usual company work will not create it in reverse. No feature can 5X the whole thing, and a magic unlock is a trap.