How Eric Ries Coined "The Pivot" And What Your Business Can Learn From It | Fast Company
During the course of his entrepreneurial adventures, he realized that some of the most iconic companies of our time--Twitter, YouTube, Groupon--had abruptly changed course before they achieved success. If they hadn't, Twitter would have stuck with audio podcasting, YouTube would have been a video dating site, and Groupon would have continued organizing political protests (and you likely would have never heard of them). Virtually every startup he could think of had pivoted at one time or another.
Is that true? I think a lot of companies haven't pivoted.
Facebook and Evernote, to name two.
Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Zynga, Square, Evernote, and Tumblr did not pivot: http://pandawhale.com/convo/1126/amazon-google-linkedin-facebook-zynga-evernote-and-tumblr-did-not-pivot-theres-something-for-conviction-and-courage-of-big-vision
-So I'm assuming that either Amazon had always planned to go from books to selling everything, or, such a dramatic expansion does not constitute a "pivot."
-Facebook's move from being for colleges to for everyone isn't a pivot, or like Amazon, expansion (which potentially reshapes what the company is/does) is not a pivot?
-Google's major move into advertising does not constitute a pivot?
Maybe I'm really not clear on what defines a "pivot." :)
A pivot is "This product cannot find market fit, so I'm going to build a new product or a new market."
A pivot is not "This product has market fit, now let's monetize it."
A pivot is not "This product has market fit, now let's use it to take another market."
A pivot is not "This product has market fit, now let's expand our product line."
In Amazon, Facebook, and Google, they kept the same vision and kept refining and expanding the product-market fit.
No pivots. :)
