In the startup community it can sometimes seem that buzzwords come from out of nowhere. Not the case with “pivot”: Steve divulges that this is actually a term coined by his “best student ever” Eric Ries, when he noticed the cyclical nature of customer validation and customer discovery – stemming from his work developing lean startup methodology.

So what is a pivot, exactly?

A pivot is the action you take when you discover that your hypotheses don’t meet reality. It used to be that if a business wasn’t succeeding, executives would get fired. What we’ve come to realize in recent years is that if your business model doesn’t match what’s going on in the real world, it’s time to fire the model. That’s why it’s so crucial when first starti...