Glitch

Dalton Caldwell explains pivoting as changing a startup’s idea, especially in the early stages when it should be a lightweight, repeated process. He weighs reasons to pivot against reasons to stay the course, emphasizing opportunity cost, honest customer feedback, founder excitement, and avoiding both premature changes and prolonged attachment to weak ideas. He offers criteria for evaluating a new idea, including its potential size, founder-market fit, ease of getting started, and early customer response. Examples from Brex, Retool, Magic, and Segment show how different pivots unfolded and what founders can learn from them.