Pivot

A significant change in a startup's direction, product, market, model, or customer, while keeping what has been learned. Not failure, but a course correction based on evidence.

Why it matters

Many successful companies are pivots from an original idea that was not working; knowing when to pivot versus persevere is one of the hardest founder judgments. A good pivot keeps the learning and changes only what the evidence demands.

For example

Slack began as a game company; when the game failed, the team pivoted the internal chat tool it had built into the product.

Related terms

Lean Startup Product-Market Fit Product Discovery

Go deeper

See how founders actually handle this on Growing and marketing, part of the Starting Up hub.

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