Strategy
Pivot as if you
planned it all along
Shifting business
models doesn’t
have to be a
last resort
Ever since Eric Ries, author of The Lean
Startup, coined the term pivot, it has become
a buzzword in entrepreneurial circles.
(Even Oprah proclaimed that her beleaguered
television network had “made the pivot.”)
Though companies such as Fab have gained
renown for upending their businesses to stay
afloat, pivots aren’t reserved for companies on
the brink of disaster. In fact, Ries says more
companies would be successful in their pivots
if they didn’t wait until things went wrong
before planning their strategy. BitMethod is
a good example of how a well-planned pivot
can help a business make a smooth transition from
one business model to the next.
Dan Shipton co-founded BitMethod, a software develop-
ment firm, in 2009. Thanks to a few early successes, the Des
Moines–based company gained a solid reputation as an IT
consulting firm and a developer of mobile apps for client com-
panies. From the start, however, Shipton wanted to develop
products under the company’s own name. “We could never
pick up another 100 clients overnight,” he says. “But with our
own app, we knew that there was high growth potential.”
That opportunity came along in the winter of 2010.
A friend of Shipton’s who owned a coffee shop mentioned
how great it would be to have a simple cash-register app that
would allow him to use payment services such as Dwolla.
After asking a few other café owners whether they had similar
needs, Shipton sat down with his partners and staff to discuss
the idea of developing an app of their own. BitMethod
employees conducted informal market research and noted
that they had received similar requests from clients in the
past. By the spring of 2011, the company committed to devel-
oping a point-of-sale app for coffee shops and quick-serve
restaurants. Shipton gave it the name Change. Here are a few
lessons the company learned from the transition:
GET YOUR TEAM ON BOARD By getting the rest of the company involved in the decision to pursue Change early on,
Shipton avoided any rifts among his staff. In fact, a consensus
developed that not only was the new app a real opportunity,
but it seemed to offer a much better prospect for fast growth
than any of the company’s other projects. “Everyone went out
and validated the idea,” Shipton says. “That’s why we didn’t
end up having knock-down, drag-out fights over it.”
FOCUS YOUR EFFORT Initially, BitMethod continued to work
on new projects for clients while developing Change, but that
proved to be overwhelming for the company’s employees. “If
ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY
MARCH 2013 | INC. | 83
