Every startup eventually faces a moment where they must ask themselves the uncomfortable question: “Should we stay on our current course or change direction?”
I’ve experienced this question many times over, and I know first-hand the difficulty associated with making such a choice.
Unexpected Career Turn Upset
Once, I was working alongside one of Israel’s premier figures in high-tech. One day, he asked (well, actually he told) me to move over to another company within his holding group.
My role was unique:
I needed to navigate from company to company within the group of course, the loss-making ones, and determine which should be shut down entirely, while which required only partial restructuring.
At the end of each two-week diagnosis period, I needed to present one or both options:
Recovery Plans or
Closure Plans.
I gained more insight into business survival from this period than from any MBA course could. Furthermore, it gave me confidence to start my own consulting firm helping companies recover.
Importantly, I learned to recognize the signs:
When to persist with efforts, when pivot or stop altogether.
My Framework Today
Signs You Should Persist:
- You have a few customers who genuinely love your product and pay for it
Once your product has won over some genuinely enthusiastic paying customers and they continue coming back, that indicates something worth holding onto. - The problem is in execution, not in defining the problem
Execution issues rather than problem definition If the “what” of your business is clear but its execution fails, you may only require to change processes, hires and marketing strategies as a solution – rather than reinvent the product itself. - You have clear insights on how to fix things
Your ideas about how to fix things have come clear; you have identified bottlenecks, inefficiencies or missing pieces and the road map to improvement is clearly marked out for you. - Market response is there, even if not fast enough
Sales might not be happening as fast as desired, but interest exists; now all that needs to be done is scaling it.
Signs You Should Pivot
- You keep adding endless features because “customers asked for them”
Do your customers keep asking for more features without you knowing it? That could be a telltale sign that it’s time for a pivot: adding features just because “customers asked for them”. Without having an explicit product vision and without pinpointing one specific pain point in need of resolution, your product could end up satisfying everyone instead of meeting specific customer needs. - Every customer wants a different change
Each customer requires something different, and if your product is being pulled in multiple directions at once, you risk creating something more like Frankenstein than a sustainable solution. - Sales pitch requires a 20-minute explanation
If your value cannot be described succinctly in one sentence, your positioning or product-market fit may be off. - Market is “not ready”
You convince yourself the market is “not yet ready”, meaning they don’t care enough. This is often disguised as patience but in truth can lead to denial.
If You Are Still Undecided…
Life is never so black-and-white as an article makes it out to be, so here are four tests you can run to help make your decision between persisting or pivoting:
1. The Money Test
For one week, focus solely on sales. No new features, tweaks, or fixes – just sales.
If, after one week, nothing is selling (other than to existing customers), and
No new sales are forthcoming – you could be in trouble.
Why did sales not materialise? Unfortunately, you cannot provide an adequate explanation. Then your problem goes beyond development’s reach.
2. The Scale Question
Ask yourself this question: “If we sold 10x more of our current product, what would its form look like?”
If the vision for scaling scares you – too many support tickets, overwhelming costs or impossible complexity, then scaling is likely not an asset but instead poses risks that must be managed carefully in order to be effective. That should be an indicator that something needs to change and you need to pivot.
3. The Pain Test
Conduct the pain test with 10 prospective customers by asking the following:
“What have you been up to today instead of using our product?”
If most people say they’re doing just fine or their current solution works perfectly well, the pain caused by what you are solving may not be sufficient enough for meaningful action to be taken.
4. The Urgency Test
To make your product even more urgent and increase urgency among potential buyers, offer it with a time-limited incentive: say a 70% discount valid for 48 hours, such as offering customers free delivery on it.
If people respond by saying: “That sounds interesting; let’s discuss further next month.” They will likely agree that further discussions should occur.
Your product isn’t high on their list of priorities.
What Are The Most Significant Differences?
A pivot builds upon what you have learned about customers, market signals and validated pain points – not simply starting again from scratch.
Jumping involves starting over every few months because one idea has proven too complex or slow for your comfort level – a tactic not unlike avoidance. This approach doesn’t provide long-term strategies; rather it serves only to derail them altogether.
Final Thoughts
Making the choice to pivot or persist can be one of the toughest decisions a founder faces.
Here’s the truth:
Persistence without feedback amounts to stubbornness.
Doing without proper knowledge will result in failure.
But with the proper signals, tests, and courage to act upon their results, you can navigate any fork in the road with confidence.
Next time you find yourself uncertain, run some tests. Be brutally honest with yourself. And keep this in mind: whether pivoting or persisting, the goal remains the same: creating something of importance to people who care.