I can't say in general, but I can share my own experience. I did a YC startup, struggled, quit, and made the Rails Tutorial (which has gone extremely well). There wasn't any way to pivot from the startup to the tutorial; they are completely different kinds of businesses. Among other things, my startup had a cofounder and investors (i.e., YC), whereas the Rails Tutorial is a solo enterprise. Developing an intuition for when to shut things down and move onto something new is an invaluable skill, one I'm only beginning to master.