The Sunk Cost Fallacy
One of the hardest psychological hurdles for a founder to overcome is the Sunk Cost Fallacy. We fall in love with our products. We pour our time, our money, and our ego into building them. When the market gives us lukewarm feedback, our instinct is to push harder to spend more on marketing, to add more features, to force it to work. We convince ourselves that "persistence" is the key.
But persistence in the wrong direction isn't grit; it's stubbornness. To change course feels like admitting failure. But the market does not care about your effort; it only cares about the value you provide. Clinging to an original idea that isn't working is a recipe for a slow, painful death.
Listening to the Data
A true pivot isn't a random guess; it is a correction based on data. It happens when you look at how customers are actually using your product, which might be different from how you intended. Some of the world's most successful technology companies exist only because they pivoted. Slack started as a video game company; the chat feature was just an internal tool they built to talk to each other. Twitter started as a podcasting platform. YouTube began as a video dating site.
These founders survived because they listened to the signal in the noise. They were willing to kill their "darling" to save the business. They understood that the product is just a vehicle for solving a problem, and if the vehicle is broken, you get a new one.
Agility is Survival
The ability to pivot requires humility and, often, an outside perspective. When you are deep in the trenches, you can't see the whole battlefield. You are too close to the problem. An external advisor or consultant can often look at your assets dispassionately. They can see the hidden value in your technology or your customer base that you are ignoring because you are too focused on the original plan.
In a rapidly changing market, stubbornness is fatal, but agility is a superpower. The goal isn't to be right about your first idea; the goal is to find the right idea before you run out of cash.