Are you on a Bridge or A Pier?
There is that inevitable time in every startup’s life when what you are doing is just not working. Either customers are not buying, or churning out quickly. Users aren’t staying. Or it is one of the countless indications that you are going nowhere fast. So you pivot the business either by taking your product and targeting a new customer/market. Or you continue to focus on the present customer base but you rebuild your product and offering?
But then the question is where are you going and where does this path lead to? Are building a Pier or Bridge.
A Pier goes straight into the ocean, in other words a dead end.
A Bridge connects two pieces of land. It is a clear path you use to go to a new destination. The analogy is apt for startups trying to get to their next milestone or stage of development.
Much of this is as my friend Mike Maples Jr. says, tied into the “Insight” they had which kicked off the idea of the business. Does the insight still hold or has the market changed. Or maybe you were right on the insight but the customer development process was flawed or the execution either on product or Go To Market was poor.
This is an important discussion and something all founders need to be honest with themselves, their team and their investors & advisors about. It will help them clarify the new hypothesis of the business and whether there is even a market for it. Markets & the competitive landscape change very quickly these days. Constantly.
These conversations give you some certainty on whether the business has legs and how to move forward. Otherwise you are just wasting your precious time. Ultimately time is the most valuable and non renewable resource in all of our lives. So in this light, make sure you do your homework, have the hard conversations to make sure you are working on something that is worthy of your time. Or at least gives you more than 50% certainty that this is the case.
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