Pivot, pivoting refers to the process of discovering different insights and market opportunities while executing the originally planned business model (BM) and then changing the business to a new BM. As we know, or as we use life, many of the services were originally not the current services. In this post, we will learn about services that succeeded after pivoting.

Youtube

2018 was the year of YouTube in Korea, as YouTube was so popular. YouTube is a video site with 2 billion monthly users. It was founded on February 14, 2005 by Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, two members of the PayPal Mafia, and was acquired by Google the following year in 2006 for $1.6 billion. YouTube was not originally a video sharing site. It was originally planned as a dating site. However, it pivoted after seeing the larger video sharing market rather than the dating category, and was able to develop into the current YouTube. An interesting fact is that Pandora TV in Korea launched its video sharing business a year before YouTube. Just like Cyworld launched before Facebook.

▲ Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube who didn't get along with people after dating

▲ The main page when YouTube was first launched

INSTAGRAM

Instagram, owned by Facebook, is currently the hottest social channel. However, Instagram's initial business model was a site that showed prototypes while learning a computer program called Burbn. Burbn provided check-in functions, photo addition options, and point earning functions, but Instagram founder Systom organized the messy menu and pivoted BM to a visual platform, and the current Instagram was born.

▲ Burbn site, an early model of Instagram

TWITTER

Twitter was launched in 2005 under the name Odeo. It was originally a podcast search and subscription site. However, after realizing that it could not compete with Apple's iTunes, the current Twitter was born with the idea of ​​Jack Dorsey, the current Twitter co-founder. It is said that at the time, it was planned as a microblogging platform where users could share each other's status in real time. Currently, Twitter has 355 million users.

▲ ODEO site, which was an early model for Twitter

SHOPIFY

Shopify, an e-commerce platform and online store builder launched in 2004, was not originally a shopping mall builder. Shopify founder Toby Lütke tried to create a snowboard sales site when he immigrated to Canada, but it was too difficult to create a shopping mall with existing shopping mall builders, so he decided to create a tool that could build a shopping mall himself. This became Shopify Shopify. It was listed on the NYSE in 2015 and is now an e-commerce platform used by more than 600,000 businesses worldwide. Recently, the Shopify Merchant Army has been mentioned as a rival to Amazon.

▲ Snow Devil, Shopify’s first site, featured on the Shopify Media Deck


▲ The site https://www.snowdevil.ca/ is still accessible.

NETFLIX

Netflix and Chill?, which is the American version of Ramen and Go?, is now a service that has become a part of our lives. However, it is not widely known that Netflix is ​​a company that has been around for over 20 years. Also, Netflix's business model was a video rental business. Netflix is ​​known to have made bold investments by intuitively sensing the future of the online streaming market. It is said that the video rental business is still ongoing.

▲ Video rental business, which was Netflix's initial business model

PAYPAL

PayPal's business model was to develop software for a mobile work device called Palm, but when Palm's popularity waned, it pivoted to a business of sending money via email. Sending money via email seems obvious now, but it was a very innovative idea at the time. The marketing of giving $10 to each person who signed up for PayPal and the person who received the money was also a huge success, and it was able to become the world's largest fintech company. This type of reward-based marketing method is still widely used in the startup industry.

▲ Palm Program, PayPal's initial business model

SLACK

Slack, a business messenger known as an email killer, was a service created by founder Stewart Butterfield for communication between Canadian and American offices while making a game called Glitch. Stewart had a vision for the business messenger market rather than the game market, and officially launched Slack in 2014. Slack is currently the world's largest business messenger with 8 million daily users and has become a unicorn with a value of over $7 billion.

▲ Slack's game development days (Dinny Specs)

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CBT, you can think about pivots in the e-commerce world too. You started selling online but now you are a vendor supplying products to online sellers, you are giving lectures on overseas sales, you are attracted to logistics and run your own CBT logistics company. These are real cases around me. Do you have any ideas about pivots?