Ask HN: When to pivot? - adamfaliq
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mindcrime
Seriously? What kind of answer do you expect from this? Maybe provide some, I
dunno, details?

Otherwise, I'd say "Pivot when it's time to pivot".

~~~
adamfaliq
Hi Phil. OP here.

Sorry for not providing any context. I have been working on my startup, Ziraf
for over 6 months now. We're trying to solve fake food reviews problem by
getting foodies, chefs and writers to review restaurants
([https://zirafapp.com](https://zirafapp.com))

We're trying to market the product to students and tourists, but we have not
found any product-market fit yet. We face the problem everytime we travel
abroad, however, we're not sure whether people actually care about the
problem.

I would like to hear from successful founders who found product-market fit
before. How did you measure whether there is big enough market for your
product?

Here is the link to the app:
[https://tinyurl.com/zirafapp](https://tinyurl.com/zirafapp)

PS: I did another Ask HN
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212201))
a while back about being solo technical co-founder before. Sorted that out, we
worked closer now and I raised my equities.

~~~
mindcrime
That sounds pretty cool. One of the first questions I'd ask is "how do you
plan to monetize the app"?

Beyond that, I like to start by working backwards from the end goal, at a
"back of the envelope" level.

Let's say your goal is to build a company that can IPO. You should be able to
look at existing data and figure out some number, like "a company needs X
million dollars in ARR to justify an IPO". Then work backwards and project "if
we sell this app / subscriptions to this service / whatever, for Y dollars,
then we need Z customers to get to IPO range".

You can also work out what your maximum customer acquisition cost can be,
given your projected pricing. Then you have a hypothesis to test: We need to
show that it's likely that we can sell this app at Y dollars, to Z people, at
a CAC of no more than Q". Then you start trying to get people to use your app
through various channels (see the book _Traction_ by Gabriel Weinberg for a
lot more on that) and then see if you can find a customer base that will
support your goal. If you can't, you can iterate on the details of your
hypothesis (change the pricing, change customer acquisition channels, etc.).
When you "pivot" per-se, is basically when you decide that the market you're
looking for, for the app you're planning to build, either isn't there, or
can't be accessed in a profitable way, etc.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading _The Four Steps to the Epiphany_
by Steve Blank, and the aforementioned _Traction_ books. And/or go through the
library of videos from the recent Startup School session. There's a lot of
good advice there on dealing with all these issues.

Note also that "get to an IPO" is just a made up example... your goal may be
less ambitious. Maybe you just want to build a company with a few million in
ARR that can support the founders on a modest lifestyle. The point is just
that you need to start from the goal, and see if the business can be built to
support the desired outcome.

