Charles HudsonFounder and Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures

Do pivots ever really work?

11 Dec 2025 · 0 min

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Charles Hudson advises that when a startup or product effort isn't working, teams should pause and reassess rather than rushing into dramatic changes. He frames pivot options as three main choices — build a different product for the same customer, redeploy the same product to a different customer, or change markets — and cautions that large, "wild" pivots are difficult.

I think the thing that's missing sometimes from this pivot conversation is sometimes the best thing to do when you realize the thing that you're working on isn't working is to actually take a pause, take a beat, step back and say, hey, we tried something. It didn't work. What are we going to do? Are we going to try to build for the same customer with a different product? Are we going to try to redeploy the same product to a different customer? Are we going to, like, change markets? I find these wild pivots are really hard.