If you’re in the software game for the long haul, at some point you’re going to have to disrupt yourself.
This could mean announcing major price hikes, firing most of your customers, drastically trimming your product line, and even shifting core product functionalities.
Scary? Of course.
Necessary? You freakin’ bet.
When I was building clarity.fm, we started off as a utility before pivoting into a full blown marketplace.
This meant HUGE changes for our existing customer base, as well as our team members who were on the front lines of driving the change.
It was also what resulted in 4x growth in a very short amount of time.
But without the full commitment of our team, and the 5 steps I cover in this week’s episode, it’s very likely that we would’ve gotten tripped up along the way, and the pivot (and eventual exit) would’ve never happened.
In short — if you’re planning to initiate a big change in your company (and at some point, you will)…
These 5 steps will make sure you make that transition as powerfully and painlessly as possible:
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At a high level, here are the 5 steps for leading a big change in your business:
- Define the outcome
- Discuss challenges
- Review the resources
- Make it their mission
- Commit to change
Where most founders totally miss the mark is #2.
Instead of engaging their team around the challenges, they try to aggressively push the changes from the top down.
Not only does this create tremendous friction with your team, but you miss the opportunity to pre-empt big challenges, fast track the change, and most importantly, start getting your team engaged and “bought in” on the pivot right from the start.
If there’s a big change that you’ve been resisting, give this episode a full watch and then let me know in the comments WHAT that change is and when you plan on initiating it.
