Do you need capital to pivot?
It's common knowledge that pivoting is essential to growing.
But is pivoting (and in this context, let's say 'pivoting' encompasses everything to do with customer refocus and product restructure) only possible if you have the capital to do so?
What if you don't?
There are obviously methods to engage your audience about changes i.e. social, direct comms, communities like this etc. That isn't really solving the problem though is it.
Surely not every founder who needs to change has the financial backing to do it, so how is it done?
'Pivoting is essential to growing' is an odd statement, it's only essential if a pivot is required for your to build a product that people want/need.
Pivoting is typically about changing direction whilst attempting to leverage the product and user base you've created so far. Typically this is because you either a.) have strong signals from your users that there is a better opportunity to be realised if you build something adjacent or peripheral to your current offering or b.) because your current proposition just isn't working and you have to try something new (and a pivot lets you leverage existing assets). Either way, in the worst case scenario a pivot is like 'starting again', and like starting any business from scratch you can do it with or without financial backing depending on any number of reasons - practical, ethical, whatever really :)
I mean, maybe?
Usually you don't think about pivoting until you have customers already. I pivoted several times in my first venture before selling, and it was just a matter of telling the team, "we are going to go this direction now". Sometimes I brought in outside firms to help, so I guess that did involved capital to pay them, but I saw it as just a usual business expense.
The fact you had a team suggests you had a well-established business that could afford to change direction.
I'm referencing founders who are in the early stages of building out their solution. Their business has customers but as with most startups in their infancy, there just isn't the capital to amend or append the product suite (immediately).
I'm wondering, in an environment where you need to change, how does an early-stage bootstrapped founder retain existing users, source new users and ensure all of the above are active?
I don't think there's one single answer here btw. Wondering what the community thinks.
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Please elaborate.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago