14. All about pivoting

YC Partner and Head of Admissions Dalton Caldwell gives us the rundown on pivoting and shares his advice on how founders should think about it for their startups.

What is a pivot?

Changing your idea
If it's pre-launch or just after launch, pivoting is really common
In the beginning, if you're not quickly ideating, rapidly learning and changing assumptions, then you're probably not moving fast enough
Best to do when it's just the founders

Why should you pivot?

Opportunity cost (the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen)
- You can only work on one thing at a time; so, if you're working on that one thing and it's not working, you're taking an opportunity cost from working on something else)
- If ((how well things are working)/(# of months of full-time effort)) is less than ((excitement to work on another idea)x(confidence that you can find an idea that works better)), you should pivot.
  - ie if you've worked on something for months and months and it's not working, that's a pretty good signal that you should pivot
Good reasons to pivot:
- You hate working on it
- It's not working
- You realize you're not a good fit to be working on this idea
- You're relying on an external factor outside my control to make my startup take off (ex: relying on VR to make your product take off)
- You're out of ideas on what to do differently to make it start working
Reasons to not pivot:
- You're trying to run away from hard work
- You have a habit of constantly changing ideas and giving up on them before launching and doing sales
- You read an article about a new topic that's popular and getting funding
Why people take too long to pivot (this is rly common)
- Loss aversion ("I've already invested so much time into this")
- You have a little bit of traction (ex: a few users)
  - THIS is actually a pretty big trap; It'd actually be easier to have a really shitty idea b/c then you'd be able to pivot much faster
- People are polite and have a hard time telling you they don't want what you're working on (So, don't confuse politeness with traction; Remeber, the best way to see if you're product is good is if people are actually buying it)
- Fear of admitting weakness/defeat
- Not taking ownership— ex: Putting blame on others (investors, etc)
- Motivational videos, posters, etc — "If you just believe hard enough, things are going to change"— not bad, but they're not actionable
Note: This decision is UP TO YOU; don't pawn this off to an advisor or investor, etc. You are the person that has to take responsibility (Extreme Ownership)
Pivoting just helps you take more shots (as long as you tried your hardest each time), you end up creating your own luck

How to find a better idea

Try to find something that you (the founder) are more excited about and makes you feel more optimistic to work on
- Corollary: Being more ambitious is counter-intuitively easier