Startup Experts Reveal Their Favorite Pivot Stories

You might think that pivoting is something done only by the startups that don’t make it. In reality, a huge number of the best startups pivoted.
In this first episode of our new series, Office Hours, Y Combinator Group Partners share their favorite stories of entrepreneurs who pivoted and went on to build game-changing companies. The group of startup experts also share their own pivot stories and help answer the questions: How do you know if it’s time for your startup to pivot-and how will you know if that next idea is the one?
Apply to Y Combinator: yc.link/OfficeHours-apply
Work at a startup: yc.link/OfficeHours-jobs
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Intro: How To Pivot
00:37 - Favorite Pivots
00:53 - Brex
02:40 - Goat
04:55 - Tom Blomfield: Billion Dollar Startup
07:52 - Clipboard Health
08:49 - The Secret to Finding the Right Problem
10:28 - Pivot Hell
13:43 - Diana Hu's Startup
16:23 - Picking The Right Metrics To Follow
16:47 - Favorite Understanding Of Pivoting
18:34 - Find And Track Your Main KPI
20:02 - Outro: Pivoting Process

[@ycombinator]

What did you pivot your startup from and to?

[@frontforumfocus]

frontforumfocus was a place to connect like minded people to work on diff projects now we are a platform conncting people working to achieve sustainable development goals through community initiatives , marketplace and educational resources

[@stara8710]

Record label➡️creativevagency ➡️....

[@bibinvmohan]

Pivoted 6 times - From a social bidding platform to social commerce to grocery delivery to medicine delivery to health package bookings to now building an app to help you fight with loneliness and stress.

[@marcoslozadafreytes]

From NFTs of clothes >>>> to >>>> Legal + AI solution. Much better the second since the Founder Market Fit is perfect.

[@thomass98]

@@marcoslozadafreytes How should a Legal AI solution work? I assume you'll work with a LLM?

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro: How To Pivot 00:37 - Favorite Pivots 00:53 - Brex 02:40 - Goat 04:55 - Tom Blomfield: Billion Dollar Startup 05:32 - GrouPay To GoCardless 07:52 - Clipboard Health 08:49 - The Secret to Finding the Right Problem 09:33 - Doing Things That Don't Scale 10:28 - Pivot Hell 11:13 - What Causes Founders to Get Lost in Pivot Hell? 13:43 - Diana Hu's Startup 14:14 - Cool Technology In Search Of a Problem 15:24 - Pivoting To Game Developers 16:23 - Picking The Right Metrics To Follow 16:47 - Favorite Understanding Of Pivoting 17:16 - Color Lovers To Creative Market 18:34 - Find And Track Your Main KPI 20:02 - Outro: Pivoting Process

[@bcj]

This is such an awesome format, my favorite content from YC over the years has been authentic partner discussions like this. At a startup school event years ago Paul and Sam held on-stage YC office hour / interviews and they were so compelling to watch. Alls that to say-more inside office hours / partner discussion content!

[@theworldismine7788]

please post videos everyday don't stop! You never know how useful they're to us

[@martinstine]

Thanks to YC and everyone for sharing your knowledge on pivoting. Much appreciated.

[@iojag7508]

Great idea adding a quick resume for each speaker! Love this format!

[@yaagbz]

Great to hear stories of pivoting - are there any stories where the pivot was not so drastic and the company shifted within the same industry/problem?

[@peterbloomingdale]

Very nice video. Wondering if there are any examples of pivots where the problem has stayed the same, but the business strategy/product to solve that problem was the pivot.

[@MrAlbertSi]

Love this new take from Gary Tan

[@yaelfelicia5820]

Love this 🙏🏽 thank you!

[@harishgupta46]

Loved the basketball example at the end

[@albertcona6499]

Thank you for this video, Im dreaming to start a startup someday.

[@LeonardoZeferino]

Great video! Thanks! ❤

[@deep-insight]

Hmmm... very informative! On a different aspect, it then begs the question if one looks at the stats of selection ratio for applications to combinator it is around 1-2%, then success rate of ycombinator startups is around 10%, and assuming around 25% startups pivot (I don't see any published numbers on pivot vs success), then does it make sense to experiment if a complete random selection of startup applications would also yield a comparable outcome in terms of startup success 🤔

[@GovGpt]

This content is gold!

[@sanjoykhan447]

Such amazing insights!

[@GChizo]

Great info.Thanks

[@MubashirullahD]

This is the kind of video youd pay money for. Its gold.

[@MubashirullahD]

No, please dont charge haha

[@vatsalnahata9560]

So insightful!

[@thetrends5670]

One of my favorite and effective pivot using the idea space is Mintlify (YC W22). They quickly understood that their product could only attract free users and was unable to acquire paying customers. Consequently, they iterated around the idea of documentation and launched a business-oriented documentation service, which has become quite popular. Now, I see many businesses using it.

[@infiniteinkpress]

Guys your content is fantastic! 👌🏻

[@Hastingsnow]

Thank you!

[@stableandhappy]

Thank You 🙏🏼

[@sicktastictv]

So good. YC content is so high quality now.

[@JasonGoodison]

Production quality 📈📈

[@shardulpathak185]

Thank you....

[@BransTiong]

Great content here 🔥

[@ycombinator]

Appreciate it

[@kozmik4848]

Founder - Idea fit is important. Are you the right person for the job.

[@thetrends5670]

Gary, how your background has vertical blur?

[@GarryTan]

I have a back wall in my living room that has a vertical acoustic slat wall

[@chuhaoliu5050]

Epic!

[@genyklemberg]

Brexx guys just wanted to be selected in to YC, because they might not be chosen for their spam offer for participants 😅

[@Iguy1]

best video ever.

[@wobblynl1742]

I swear thats Poppy from Mythic Quest xD

[@MusabTheMachine]

Key Insight : Make what people want in reality not our whims about people wants in our imaginations

[@AkireMaru]

How are people who don’t have a fully fleshed idea making it into Y Combinator over people who do?

[@will-ye]

they are founders with degrees from top universities and have experience from top companies

[@salarliv]

Some of these aren’t pivots. Some of these are just completely changing your company.

[@matthewobrien894]

Not GOAT?

[@fochiller]

A pivot *is* completely changing your company.

[@joecod298]

@@ycombinatorso we gotta always following our customers needs even if we need to change everything in the company? I mean, how did Brex go from a VR startup to a payment startup? The customers of these 2 startups are completely different, aren’t they?

[@matthewao]

What’s your point? If it works it works

[@carloslfu]

@@joecod298, in the case of Brex it was more about the founders skills than the customers, founder-market-fit.

[@dkswami3384]

Yup mine is the first like😂

[@ycombinator]

*high five*

[@EnnioEvo]

How is this content for free

[@krisb-travel]

Any startup founders here? I’m looking for a cofounder

[@ahmednawaz4723]

If you are interested in hiring a product designer, let me know

[@ahmednawaz4723]

If you are interested in hiring a product designer, let me know

[@rightright6582]

Eurika

[@QROROLAB]

😮...!!

[@prabhatsharma4]

I am trying to sell a counseling AI service to addiction rehabs. Have talked to 200 rehabs and there has been only one request for demo. When should i decide to pivot to a different customer or problem statement?

[@BizLytInteractive]

[@plusone.network]

Q: im sorry but how is starting a second company in a different market after an exit a pivot? A: its not.

[@plusone.network]

moral: stick to what youre good at sure