One interesting thing I've learned from studying the history of several dozen startups and from doing about 20 pivots myself is that oftentimes the startup doesn't pivot into the market, the market (or technology) pivots into the startup. In other words, the startup is non-viable at the time of its founding, but later events change the structure of the market in a way that takes the struggling business and turns it into a growth powerhouse.
Google, Whatsapp, Uber, Twitch, AirBnB, EverNote, Roblox, and to some extent Apple can all be seen as examples of this.
This has a bunch of implications for what it's really like to found a startup: in particular, it validates the wisdom of keeping burn rate extremely low and of being extremely persistent, as well as having a product out there that people can use. It also suggests that it may be better to have a lot of usable-but-unpolished working products that are constantly getting exposure (even if they're not succeeding), rather than putting all your eggs into improving one product, and argues for putting failed startups in maintenance-mode rather than shuttering them entirely.
Google, Whatsapp, Uber, Twitch, AirBnB, EverNote, Roblox, and to some extent Apple can all be seen as examples of this.
This has a bunch of implications for what it's really like to found a startup: in particular, it validates the wisdom of keeping burn rate extremely low and of being extremely persistent, as well as having a product out there that people can use. It also suggests that it may be better to have a lot of usable-but-unpolished working products that are constantly getting exposure (even if they're not succeeding), rather than putting all your eggs into improving one product, and argues for putting failed startups in maintenance-mode rather than shuttering them entirely.