When should you pivot from a minimum viable product?

3 How do you identify a pivot opportunity?

Before deciding to pivot from your MVP, validate that there is a real and viable opportunity for a different or better product. Analyze your MVP data and feedback to uncover patterns, trends, gaps, and anomalies. Identify the key metrics, assumptions, and hypotheses to test or verify with your pivot. Additionally, conduct customer research to understand their pain points, goals, preferences, and behaviors. Next, generate and prioritize different options for your pivot based on your data and research insights. Create prototypes or mockups of your pivot ideas and test them with customers. Measure and compare the results against your success criteria and assumptions to determine if this is the right move for you.

4 How do you plan and execute a pivot?

Once you have validated your pivot opportunity, you need to plan and execute your pivot in a way that minimizes risk, maximizes learning, and aligns with your vision and goals. To do this, you should define your pivot scope and strategy, deciding how much to change and which strategy to use. It’s also important to communicate your pivot vision and rationale to stakeholders and customers. Explain why you are pivoting, what you are pivoting to, and how you are pivoting. Share data and research evidence, goals and objectives, expected outcomes and benefits. Additionally, build and launch your pivot product using lean and agile principles. Start with the most critical assumptions and features, then iterate based on feedback and data. Lastly, test the product with existing or new customers to measure its performance and impact.

5 How do you evaluate and improve your pivot?

Once you launch your pivot product, it is essential to evaluate and improve its results and effectiveness. You can track and review key indicators that measure your pivot success and progress, such as customer engagement, retention, revenue, satisfaction, or referrals. Additionally, you should collect and analyze feedback from customers, team members, stakeholders, and competitors. This will give you insights into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your pivot product. Based on these metrics and feedback, you can learn from both failures and successes to validate or invalidate assumptions and hypotheses. You can also iterate on the pivot product by adding, removing, or modifying features, value proposition, business model, or customer segments. Ultimately, it is important to compare the results of the pivot with your original goals and expectations to determine if a product-market fit or a sustainable competitive advantage has been achieved. From there you can decide whether to persevere with your pivot product or pivot again to a different solution. Pivoting from your MVP is a complex decision that can have a huge impact on product development. By following these guidelines, you can make an informed decision and create a product that delivers value to customers and your business.