Ideas, Business Plans, Pivots and Evolution

Everybody starts with an idea and possibly a business plan; well almost everyone. No matter how detailed the plan is, it will never stay as is and things will happen. Things that you did not foresee, things that are not in your control or things you assumed and did not hold up. A couple of examples -

1.    Markets and regulations change that directly or indirectly impact your business

2.    Customers reacting to your product differently than you anticipated. They end up loving features that you least expected and not as much the ones you thought are your big hits.

We hear about startups pivoting all the time. However, there is a significant difference between Pivots and Evolutions.

Pivots are massive shifts in Business models whereas Evolutions are the gradual shifts of your business based on customer and market feedback. Here is a great example for each -

Slack is a great example of a successful pivot that moved from gaming to an enterprise messaging company. We all know of the Slack success story, for all the right reasons.

AureusAnalytics, one of my early investee companies and going great guns, has been more of an evolution rather than a pivot. Each time they get feedback from our customers, partners, advisors, etc. they take it back to the shop floor and make rapid changes. These changes look small individually however on a cumulative basis they have a large impact over time. This has allowed them to constantly evolve and stay at par with the customers’ and industry’s needs.

Whether it’s a Pivot or an Evolution, the key is to listen to customer feedback and rapidly distill that back into your business. While all start-ups swear by pivots very few have the grit to do so but the least each start-up or an enterprise should do is to continuously evolve their product, services and business models to stay relevant to their customers and market.

Let your Business Plan evolve!