One Tool That Can Save Your Business, or Effortlessly Scale it… The Pivot
Sometimes a new idea can take you to places you would never imagine yourself to be. Pivots can seem to pop out of nowhere, and often be totally unrealistic. Then like magic, they just happen to workout as a win-win solution beyond your wildest dreams.
For example, I would consider the Twitter story, a pivot story. Twitter was once called Odeo. When Odeo was trying to build itself into a profitable tech company, iPods were hot, a mp3 voice message was a fun idea, and your status on Facebook seemed like kind of a big deal. At some point, Odeo CEO, Evan Williams, knew the writing was on the wall that the Odeo concept as it was, would not be a successful business idea. He had to make an executive decision. Shut down Odeo, or have all employees working on pivotal new ideas to try and save the company.
Employee, Jack Dorsey, would come up with a new idea that was based on how important he thought Facebook and Myspace statuses were and group texting. Then, with the help and support of co-founder of Odeo, Noah Glass, Twitter was built. It was a completely different concept than the original Odeo pitch to investors. The early stages of Twitter was a little different from the final product that we know as the Twitter of today, but this is a great example of how new ideas and pivoting can change everything.
There is some controversy about how the business side was handled with Odeo’s investors, closing of the company, and the creation of Twitter as a new company, but that is another story. Ultimately, I would consider Twitter a new concept that came from employees of a company trying to create new ideas to save a failing business.
Luckily, you don’t have to wait to fail to benefit from a new product or service idea. A successful pivot is one of my favorite outcomes of a new idea brainstorming session. I realized the power of a weekly company-wide new idea meeting from my boss, Gwyneth. I worked at the company before she implemented the meeting, and instantly I could feel the creative energy and the magnetism it created for us as a group from the very first meeting.
I saw the magic it generated as our product releases became more frequent and more successful. A weekly new idea meeting maintained an open and creative workplace that was consistently working to scale. Scaling up doesn’t necessarily mean always coming out of left-field, but just exploring a variety of different directions weekly and without judgement naturally facilitates expansion. Anything is possible when you are persistently conceptualizing new ideas and approaches of any business with a variety of minds.
You can brainstorm pivot ideas alone, with a group, or with your actual real customers. You can have new idea meetings daily, weekly or monthly. There are no rules. The main thing is to implement this tool on a regular basis as a building block, and or an emergency crisis parachute to save a company from failure.
Now, get out there. Schedule a time for your new idea brainstorming session as soon as possible!
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
