PIVOT IF YOU MUST, BUT DON’T TWIRL
I'm planning to go postal if I hear one more person pontificating about "pivoting". I know it's the biggest business buzzword of the last couple of years (I guess "disruptive" will just need to suck it up and settle for second place), but we don't have to beat the concept to death. It’s not like it’s a genius new idea or something.
I do get it. I’ve said it myself in many different ways for way too many years. Sometimes – especially in a startup - you need to change directions and sometimes – especially when things are going sideways – you just have to stop dead in your tracks (no matter how far down the wrong road you may have travelled) and start again. This is the First Rule of Holes: If You Find Yourself in One, Stop Digging. You shouldn’t ever lose sight of your vision; but it’s more than O.K. to alter your course – in fact, it’s essential in today’s rapidly-changing world to constantly react to changes in your circumstances and to the competitive environment that you find yourself in from time to time.
But here’s the thing: (and let me say right up front that I never really liked Algebra or Geometry that much) – I think a Pivot can’t be more than a sharp 90 degrees. It’s an adjustment – a course correction – and only rarely a complete abandonment. And I think that beyond a Pivot (or maybe 2 Pivots at the most), you don’t have a process or a plan, you’ve got a problem. And that’s what I think of as a Twirl. If you’re just spinning around in circles and grabbing at straws (“twirling” instead of pivoting), you’re wasting your time (and, most likely, someone else’s money), and you need to give it a rest. This kind of frenzy might be the right way to roll at a weekend hackathon or in a brain-storming contest or competition, but it’s no way to build a business. If you keep changing your UI, redesigning or repositioning the product or service before it’s even out the door, morphing the mission and the mantra, etc. – you’re missing the boat.
So sit down, catch your breath, and take stock of where you’re at, what you’re really trying to accomplish, and whether you’re even moving in the right direction. It’s easy to get caught up in mindless activity. In fact, it’s actually a pretty effective (albeit very temporary) cure for the anxiety and fear that every entrepreneur lives with. But it’s not a solution or a strategy for success.
There is one small bright spot. It’s not really your fault. It’s the fault of these lean startup zealots who have misled a whole generation of young technologists. They’ve got the horse behind the cart and it’s really tough to make any headway that way. This MVP (minimum viable product) bullshit needs to stop. It’s actually not alright to have your first customers be your last beta testers. Because in this world of rapid reaction and instant abandonment, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and – as a young business with limited resources - you don’t have the time or the resources to hang in there until you get it right. In the first instance, it’s about research and analysis rather than reacting to external stimuli and revising your story, your pitch, your product or your approach every few weeks. Getting it right at the beginning these days is the whole ballgame. The way you start the journey ultimately determines where you end up.
The truth is that you’ve got to find a need and a problem to solve before you rush ahead and start building the solution. This isn’t fun and it’s hard to excite your engineers and your buddies about taking care of business before you starting building your bundle or your software stack, but it’s what you’ve got to do. This is slow, nasty work where you have to go out into the real world and do your homework. You need to find and ask prospective customers and users what their pain points are, what problems they need solved, and – most importantly of all – what and whether they are prepared to pay for a solution. Then you can build a product or a service. We need to be talking about MVA – Minimum Viable Audience (aka “real customers”) and then you can use the MVP methodology to iteratively build increasingly responsive offerings for your users.
I say fuck this “Field of Dreams” nonsense. The customers aren’t coming. They won’t find their way to your door because, not only don’t (and won’t) they even know you exist, they could care less about you and your dreams unless you’ve got something real, timely, and cost-effective that addresses a pressing and irresistible need that they have and one which they admit to and acknowledge having. Something they can’t find a reason or an excuse to say “No” to. That’s a real product. Not a fantasy.
Right now, we’ve got thousands of business builders who have been told that it’s all about the technology when the truth is that it’s all about the targets – the real needs of real customers. This isn’t something that you fix in the shop – it’s something you solve first in the field. Stop pivoting, quit twirling, grab your hat, get out of the office and hit the road, ask the right people the right questions, and you just might find your way to a business worth building.
PP: “You Get What You Work for, Not What You Wish for” 4-12-14
