How to successfully pivot your business idea, might just save you! You’ve spent weeks or months working on a project and haven’t come up for air. You start to feel like it isn’t working but the thought of ditching it all and starting again brings you out in a cold sweat. This is where pivoting comes in.
You might have heard of the old saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Essentially this is pivoting. You have worked hard to lay down that foundation, but you might discover that it isn’t right for your audience or the clients that you currently have. Pivoting allows you to pick out the parts that are working, and ditch the rest.
There are some super famous pivots that you might not have realised were actually ones. Companies like Instagram or Twitter are two that come to mind. The way that we use their software now, wasn’t what it was intentionally designed for originally- even viagra started off in a completely different market to the one it ended up in!
I explain how you can make it work for you when you are a company or freelancer of one in the podcast below.
There will always be times that it gets hard. Knowing what to do in those moments can be the difference between success and failure.
How to pivot
- Look at what isn’t working in your project or career at the moment.
- Look at the parts that aren’t working that you still love.
- Out of those love parts- which bits do you want to save, or take onto a new project?
- Look at what is working now.
- Are you customers or clients excited about those parts that are working? (If you don’t know, go and ask them. You can call them, put out surveys on social media and email them. These have been the most powerful and useful tools in my career kit).
- What do your customer and clients need help with? What are their pain points?
- Which parts of your project can you adapt to help them with those points?
