A pivot does not have to mean throwing away the entire company. This lesson examines the different parts of a business that can change and introduces a keep-or-change canvas to make that decision more deliberate.
Carlos Sanabria connects the decision to customer evidence: which features people value, which problems matter and which parts of the current approach still work.
What you'll learn.
- Separate different types of pivots before deciding to change direction.
- Preserve useful capabilities while testing the assumption that failed.
- Use customer behavior and interviews to choose what changes.
Change the scope of the product.
A zoom-in pivot makes one valuable feature the center of the product. This can be relevant when a broad product has accumulated functionality but users consistently rely on one part of it.
A zoom-out pivot goes in the other direction: the current product becomes one part of a larger solution. The important distinction is whether customer evidence supports a narrower focus or reveals a broader job the existing product only partly addresses.
Separate the customer from the problem.
A customer-segment pivot takes a useful solution to a different audience. A customer-need pivot keeps learning from an audience while changing the problem the business addresses. Those choices require different research.
An open line to customers is valuable only if the conversation investigates their work and frustrations. Questions about past behavior can reveal that the audience is right while the proposed problem is not, or that another group gets substantially more value from the current solution.
Review the platform, revenue and channel.
The lesson also considers moving between an application and a broader platform, changing how the business earns money and changing how it reaches customers. A subscription, a commission and a different acquisition route each introduce assumptions that can be tested.
Name the specific part of the model under review. A weak acquisition channel does not automatically mean the product is wrong. Difficulty capturing value does not necessarily mean the underlying customer problem has disappeared.
Use a keep-or-change canvas.
List the product, audience, positioning, technology, team, revenue model and channels. Mark what the evidence supports keeping and what it suggests changing. This makes a pivot more concrete than a general instruction to find a new direction.
Carlos uses Slack and Twitch as illustrations of changed focus and positioning. The practical lesson is to distinguish assets you can preserve from assumptions that need revision. A company can learn from a weak result without treating every previous decision as a mistake.
Before pivoting, state the failed assumption and the evidence behind that conclusion. Then choose the smallest coherent change that addresses it while protecting what is already useful.
