For most founders and investors, pivots have a bad connotation. After all, pivoting means that what you had planned and done so far didn’t work out. Even if this is true, pivoting is the norm rather than the exception.
One study found that startups that spin at least once or twice “raise 2. 5 times more money, have 3. 6 times more user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale than startups that spin more than twice or none at all. “
This suggests that in the startup world, the initial plan and expectations are rarely met and that being stubborn and persevering rather than reevaluating your strategy is not the most productive approach.
However, abandoning your plans and changing direction takes courage, so here are some inspiring stories from some of the most well-known startups to give you and your team the motivation to move forward with a turnaround.
Netflix’s venture began in 1997 as a DVD rental service by mail, a cutting-edge solution at a time when the dominant Blockbuster player was brick-and-mortar store rentals.
However, the landscape of content ingestion is changing with the rise of virtual media. Aware of this change, Netflix turned to video-on-demand streaming in 2007. This update is prophetic; It has capitalized on the growing adoption of broadband and adjustments in customer habit towards ingesting virtual content.
Today, Netflix is a leading streaming service with millions of subscribers worldwide, demonstrating the importance of evolving models as a reaction to technological advancements and market trends.
The story of how YouTube was created is a story of accidental discovery. It all started as a video dating site called “Tune In Hook Up,” which temporarily proved unviable. The founders then identified the more universal need for a platform where anyone can simply upload and share videos, regardless of their content. This twist transformed YouTube from a failed dating site to the video-sharing platform it is today, serving billions of users worldwide.
Acquired through Google in 2006 for $1. 65 billion, YouTube’s pivot is a testament to the ability to recognize and adapt to the broader desires of the market, proving that sometimes the style of business evolves from the popularity of unforeseen opportunities.
Initially introduced as Burbn, a recording app with gaming and photo-sharing elements, Instagram’s pivot is a classic example of how to focus on its strengths. The founders found that the photo-sharing facet of Burbn was the most used and enjoyed feature. In response, he stripped the app down to its essence, focusing solely on sharing photos, and rebranded it as Instagram.
This twist, which emphasizes the simplicity and strength of visual storytelling, made Instagram one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in history, and eventually the app was acquired through Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.
Pinterest was born as Tote, a mobile grocery shopping app that aimed to combine the app of a shopping list with the lure of fashion discovery. However, the founders hit a significant obstacle: users liked to search for and save items, but rarely made purchases. through the app.
The concept is clear; People enjoyed collecting and organizing photographs of products they admired. As they pivoted, the founders turned Tote into Pinterest, a visual discovery engine. This turn exploited the same fundamental habit (collecting and organizing photographs), but in a way that greatly expanded their appeal and usefulness.
The good fortune of Pinterest, which now boasts millions of users, illustrates the power of reinventing how existing user behaviors can serve as the foundation for entirely new products.
Slack began life as an internal communication tool for a small game progression company called Tiny Speck. The game itself was not commercially successful. Recognizing the perspectives of their communication tool beyond gaming, the team expanded Slack as a standalone product aimed at improving communication. in the workplace.
This shift responded to a widespread need for optimized, efficient, and integrable communication equipment outside of the mail in companies of all sizes.
Today, Slack is synonymous with modern communication in the workplace, illustrating that sometimes it’s the products that work on that address an unforeseen but pressing need in the marketplace.
Many of the stories on this list show that even if your initial business concept didn’t succeed, you would have possibly built something of value in the process. You just need to locate it and about it.