Doubling the budget should feel as automatic as cutting it

Most operators who bother to write a kill rule never write its twin. They'll pre-commit to cutting spend on a product after a bad enough stretch -- a number, a date, a threshold agreed to in advance, so the decision doesn't have to be re-made in the emotional middle of a losing streak. Then a product actually starts working, and the same discipline disappears. Suddenly there's a meeting. Suddenly there's a reason to wait one more week and see if it holds.

That hesitation isn't caution. It's the same bias that makes a bad number get explained away, just wearing the opposite outfit -- a good number getting second-guessed instead of banked, scrutinized instead of acted on, while the thing that actually earned more spend sits underfunded during the exact window where funding it would matter most.

A scale rule deserves the same mechanical treatment as a stop rule: the ratio that triggers it, the amount it releases, agreed to before anyone's ego or anxiety is in the room. Not because conviction doesn't matter, but because the moment a gate opens is precisely the moment you're least equipped to judge it cleanly -- too relieved to be rigorous, too invested in being right to ask whether the win is durable or lucky.

Write the stop rule. Then write the rule that says go, and hold yourself to it exactly as hard.