In business being inflexible can spell disaster. As an entrepreneur, you’re constantly thrown into an iterative process of idea, test, evaluate, and change.

Pivoting, at any point, along the way is often needed to better position your business for growth and to attract new customers.

And, even the most successful companies of all time have had to change directions — sometimes in the most dramatic ways.

Historical Business Pivots

Take, Twitter for example. It started out as a company called Odeo, a network where people could search for and subscribe to podcasts.

However, when iTunes took over the podcast market, they were scraping to find new subscribers and keep the business open. All of the employees were given two weeks notice and one simple task: come up with a new idea.

And, that is how the Twittersphere was conceived and born.

Here’s another one…

You may know Nintendo as the video game console manufacturer. But, it wasn’t always that way.

In fact, Nintendo had to innovate and redefine itself dozens of times. So, from making playing cards to instant rice, to manufacturing vacuum cleaners, even functioning as a hotel chain. Without pivoting, Nintendo would have likely gone out of business well before becoming game console legends.

Pivoting and trying new decisions are important to business growth

Thomas Edison could very well be considered as the “Father of the Pivot”. With over 2,200 patents to his name, he’s famously quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

As business owners, being able to stay open to new ideas is an important part of taking your business to the next level. If you are personally attached to a “dying” business idea, you run the risk of investing time and money into a concept that is going nowhere fast.

But, how do you try out new ideas — quickly and cheaply?

This is where outsourcing is king! Outsourcing gives you the flexibility to try out new concepts before investing heavily in developing them.

Since you can tap into talented and experienced freelancers for pennies on the dollar, you can get a new idea market-tested within a few weeks and for under $500.

Here’s how…

A few years ago, I was considering launching a social media service specifically for the pet industry.

From my research, it seemed like a viable idea that could generate substantial revenue for my business. But, it was just that — based on MY research as opposed to having accurate market research to justify the pivot.

So, here’s what I did.

1. Data scrape. I hired a freelance data scraper for $50 to compile the contact information for all pet-related businesses in the Southeast. This included veterinarian, groomers, dog walkers, pet food stores, and specialty pet businesses. Within a week I had over a thousand emails and phone numbers of potential customers.
2. Market survey. Since I wasn’t sure if the business idea was viable and how much the target market would be willing to pay, I outsourced and had a telemarketing survey done for under $300.
3. Result review. With the survey results and the feedback prospective customers provided, it became clear that pivoting in that direction would require more resources and detract from the core competencies that we decided to hold off on that idea.

As you can see, within a few weeks and for under $400, we were able to “test” a new product and quickly pivot to a more sustainable idea that could quickly generate revenue for us. Had I not leveraged outsourcing, I may have invested thousands into an idea to only find out months (if not a year) later that it was not a profitable option.

Brad Stevens, Founder/CEO Outsource Access