It’s only appropriate that Eric Ries is the subject of the first video for Fast Company‘s new series: The Pivot. He’s the author of a best-selling book, The Lean Startup, and the man who made the term “pivot” part of the business vernacular.
Ries’s blog offers an advanced course in startupology, which until recently was more alchemy than science. He’s all about agile startups that are based on testing hypotheses, collecting data, and constantly iterating products. During the course of his entrepreneurial adventures, he realized that some of the most iconic companies of our time–Twitter, YouTube, Groupon–had abruptly changed course before they achieved success. If they hadn’t, Twitter would have stuck with audio podcasting, YouTube would have been a video dating site, and Groupon would have continued organizing political protests (and you likely would have never heard of them). Virtually every startup he could think of had pivoted at one time or another. Ries’s observation quickly morphed into a kind of Moore’s Law for startups, which he believes are almost certain to change course before becoming successful.
After you watch, be sure to read my column that kicks off the series, Enter The Pivot: The Critical Course Corrections Of Flickr, Fab.com, And More.
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