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I know of one company that actually managed to pull off the pivot thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TippingPoint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TippingPoint

I know of one company that actually managed to pull off the pivot thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TippingPoint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TippingPoint They switched from an internet appliance (kind of like an early Chromebook) to smart deep packet inspection firewalls. Not a ton in common between those except that they both require hardware to be built. If I remember right, local lore was that they pulled it off partly by realizing early that they needed to change direction and being well-funded enough that they had enough cash to start over.

ido 7y ago
Didn't slack start as a game studio? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#History
- forgotmypwd123 7y ago
  So did Flickr. Same guy behind it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Butterfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Butterfield
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- zeckalpha 7y ago
  Not in the dot-com years.
SamuelAdams 7y ago
Here's another example of a successful pivot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063362 Posting anon. In 2009, the startup where I was working was hitting the skids, and our investors (correctly) were not willing to back us. We all kept grinding for a month or two in honorable futility, but after a while, my bank account depleted and I had to go. To make various ends meet and to keep my mental health during the wind down however, I took up some contract work that I found through various friends in the SF startup scene. One company that I really liked and did some small stuff for was Burbn, which was a mobile-only location check-in that was hinged around taking photos of your location. Missing my friends in NYC (I made a lot of friends in SF, but my inner circle were my college buddies from CMU; I went to tech and they went finance, sigh), I decided to leave SF to head to NYC and get a fresh start. As I was leaving, I wanted to tie up a few loose ends, so I emailed my contact at Burbn and said I was likely to be unavailable for any more work, but that I liked the project and hoped for the best for him. He responded and said that he was near funding on a small pivot, and that if I was interested, there might be a full-time role available. I declined - I was mentally done with SF and the startup scene (Larry Chiang, 111 Minna, the rise of FB spam-crap like RockYou, etc.) as it was then. That person was Kevin Systrom; that pivot was Instagram.
- mcdevilkiller 7y ago
  Ouch! I hope your fresh start paid off, though.
tropo 7y ago
Novell was a successful pivot. Novell started as a hardware company, with a proprietary computer based on the 68000. That bombed, so the pivot was to NetWare. That dominated PC networking for about 15 years.

ido 7y ago

Didn't slack start as a game studio? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#History

forgotmypwd123 7y ago
So did Flickr. Same guy behind it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Butterfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Butterfield
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
zeckalpha 7y ago
Not in the dot-com years.

SamuelAdams 7y ago

Here's another example of a successful pivot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063362 Posting anon. In 2009, the startup where I was working was hitting the skids, and our investors (correctly) were not willing to back us. We all kept grinding for a month or two in honorable futility, but after a while, my bank account depleted and I had to go. To make various ends meet and to keep my mental health during the wind down however, I took up some contract work that I found through various friends in the SF startup scene. One company that I really liked and did some small stuff for was Burbn, which was a mobile-only location check-in that was hinged around taking photos of your location. Missing my friends in NYC (I made a lot of friends in SF, but my inner circle were my college buddies from CMU; I went to tech and they went finance, sigh), I decided to leave SF to head to NYC and get a fresh start. As I was leaving, I wanted to tie up a few loose ends, so I emailed my contact at Burbn and said I was likely to be unavailable for any more work, but that I liked the project and hoped for the best for him. He responded and said that he was near funding on a small pivot, and that if I was interested, there might be a full-time role available. I declined - I was mentally done with SF and the startup scene (Larry Chiang, 111 Minna, the rise of FB spam-crap like RockYou, etc.) as it was then. That person was Kevin Systrom; that pivot was Instagram.

mcdevilkiller 7y ago
Ouch! I hope your fresh start paid off, though.

tropo 7y ago

Novell was a successful pivot. Novell started as a hardware company, with a proprietary computer based on the 68000. That bombed, so the pivot was to NetWare. That dominated PC networking for about 15 years.