What is a pivot

Definition

A pivot is a structured course correction. The business keeps its vision and changes one fundamental hypothesis about its product, its customer, its strategy or its engine of growth, because of what the market showed it. In The Lean Startup (2011), Eric Ries names pivots by what changes, among them a zoom-in pivot, where one feature becomes the whole product, a customer segment pivot, a customer need pivot and a channel pivot. It is not an ad hoc change: it comes out of a planned decision to pivot or persevere.

Why it matters

It is what learning looks like before its cost gets too high. The team, the know-how and often the code stay, and what goes is one assumption the evidence did not support. Without a planned review point, founders tend to drift instead: they keep spending on a plan the numbers stopped supporting, or they change everything at once and learn nothing from it.

Directly related: MVP, Traction, Red flag.

Improvement tips

• Set a date in advance for the decision to pivot or persevere, and name the number that will decide it.
• Write the new direction as one testable hypothesis before you spend money on it.
• List what you keep, the team, the know-how, the code and the customers who stayed, before you list what you drop.
• Change one part of the model at a time, so you know which change worked.

Common mistakes

• Changing direction without studying the feedback that made the first plan fail.
• Calling every change of direction a pivot, when there is no hypothesis behind it.
• Throwing away working assets together with the assumption that failed.