How to change your business's course without giving up

Changing a business's course has a name in the startup world: pivoting. It isn't giving up. It's recognizing that part of the plan doesn't work and turning on a foot that remains firm, like a basketball player on the pivot foot. Many well-known companies got where they are after changing the product, the customer or the way they charge.

The challenge is knowing what to keep and what to swap, and making the swap without burning the cash you have left.

The practical path

1. List what is working. It may be a type of customer who buys more, a product that sells itself, a skill on the team, a partnership, a channel that brings people in. That's your pivot foot.
2. List what isn't. The main product that doesn't move, the expensive location, the channel that costs more than it brings, the price that doesn't cover the cost.
3. Choose the kind of change. The most common: same customer, another product; same product, another customer; same product, another channel (from physical to online, from retail to businesses); same product, another way of charging (subscription, bundle, rental).
4. Test the new route before turning everything around. A new offer for ten customers, a test page, a 30-day pilot. Keep what makes money today while the new route proves it works.
5. Do the cash math. How much does the change cost and how long does it take to pay off? If your runway doesn't cover that time, the change needs to be smaller.
6. Communicate honestly. Customers, suppliers and your team deserve to know what's changing and why. An explained change creates allies.
7. Adjust your registration, if needed. A new activity may require changing your activity code (CNAE), your tax classification (the MEI has a list of permitted activities) or your license. Talk to your accountant before selling the new thing.

How Bairo went through it

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez's path is a sequence of changes of course that kept one foot firm. From the salon came a hair-treatment course. From hair care came a natural-based cosmetics brand. After losing a business to his partners, he went to work in events and digital printing, reinvented himself and built up capital.

Years later, when, he says, the banks refused to integrate the solution he had built for agribusiness, he didn't abandon the problem. He changed route: he focused on the pieces he could build without depending on a bank's integration, such as artificial intelligence, messaging under the ISO 20022 standard, blockchain and tokenization of real-world assets. Building isn't operating with the public: for that, each front has its own rules and authorizations. His story sums it up: the banks that didn't want to integrate the idea ended up teaching him to build his own infrastructure.

The Method step

Changing course is applying step 2 of the Seventh Attempt Method: ask what is inside the no. An "execution no" doesn't ask you to abandon the purpose; it asks for another road to it. Add step 3: test the new route with the 14/20 rule before turning the whole business around.

Discover the Seventh Attempt Method

Read also

• When to give up on a business?
• My business isn't selling: what do I do?
• The frequency of silence