Brandon Boynton is a current student at IUPUI and serial entrepreneur. This post is one in a series about the lessons he’s learned as a startup founder.
By Brandon Boynton, CEO, Vemity
4. Roll with the punches.
Don’t be afraid to pivot your startup. It’s far, far easier to pivot early on than it is after putting time and money into your original business model or taking on investment money. This ties so closely with the last lesson, but is also influenced by the unnecessary stigma attached to pivoting.
After I first met with one of my soon-to-be mentors, I was quickly told how poor our initial business model was. And you know what? He was absolutely right. But I was too afraid to pivot, and I made the mistake of continuing with our original business model for far too long.
It would have benefited me greatly to have taken his advice, maybe verified it with another mentor, and considered the changes we ultimately made later anyway.
I was too afraid that pivoting would make me seem inadequate. If we changed our business model, clearly I wasn’t good enough to come up with the right business model originally. But what I hadn’t yet learned was that coming up with ideas isn’t what makes a successful entrepreneur; identifying flaws and overcoming them is.
Next: Customer input.
Lesson 3: Don’t be blinded by your passion.
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