The SaaS startup and software space loves to talk about a pivot and pivoting. What does it even mean? Is it another tech buzzword?
No one gives you a framework on how to pivot.
Or even discusses the process. There are no case studies that spring to mind.
And it’s always in the “early days” when “we realised” where we’d gone wrong.
That’s all well and good. What if you’re a solo founder, a solopreneur? And you’ve been building something on the side, for years.
Again, there’s contrasting advice out there.
Build something quick. Test assumptions. Get it in front of people and switch directions from the feedback.
Or it’s stick with it, be consistent. Spend years figuring it out.
But if you’re not VC-backed.
When do you pivot? How long do you stick with something?
Pivoting After Six Years
I’ve got to a point with one of my projects, Elementary Analytics. Where I either pivot. Or I shut the project down completely.
I started building the SaaS product back in 2018.
But it wasn’t until late 2020, or early 2021 that I focused on who it was for and then pointed all my efforts in that direction.
My first instinct was to help other small businesses with their marketing data.
But they didn’t care.
And it seemed that small digital marketing agencies would be a better fit. This was my first “pivot” of “who it is for”.
After a lot of effort, I managed to land one or two paying customers. Small “one-man-band” marketing agencies.
But, fast forward to July 2024.
I’d taken on a business partner to help me with the marketing. And we dropped to zero customers, then back up to a huge single customer.
We’d done an AppSumo partnership that ran for a few months. Which meant we had a few customers on a lifetime deal too. So it’s not as bad as I’m making out.
But recurring revenue was almost nothing (more on costs in a minute).
Cut Your Nose off To Spite Your Face
As I’ve talked about many times.
I’ve had to shut down projects before. Even ones with paying customers. The word pivot didn’t even enter my mind.
And my initial thought was to do the same with Elementary Analytics.
Am I beholden to the sunk cost fallacy?
The reason I’m only keeping going with the project is because I don’t want to feel like I’ve lost six years of my life. (Which I haven’t).
We’ve had customers, some subscribed for months at a time. One or two for years.
And we seem to be gaining traction with our blog content and SEO.
So it is a numbers game? And even though it’s been six years in the making. Have I not put enough volume through the product?
Or is it more than that?
Am I barking up the wrong tree? Trying to help the wrong types of people?
I’ve also got many other projects. Including building out my personal brand. That doesn’t get enough of my attention. Because I’m focusing on Elementary Analytics so much,
So, could I pivot with the project?
First, is that it no longer takes up so much of my resources. Both time and money.
Two, that it still takes advantage of the effort, the six years I’ve spent on it.
Three, it allows me to focus on other projects and ideas. Those that have given me a “sign” that they have potential (and they excite me).
Fourth, I target people who have the resources to pay for it. And I narrow in on making it an amazing tool for a certain “job title” (more on this in a second).
Stop Spending Time & Money
The problem with Elementary Analytics is that it’s draining both my time and money.
Here’s what that has looked like for me.
Marketing Agencies Will Waste Your Time
In early 2024. A friend of mine pitched me on his new business idea.
He was looking for people to test out a new service for his business.
They wouldn’t charge me for their time. Only for the set-up and hosting costs. Their new service was cold outreach using email.
Now. It wasn’t my friend and his business that wasted my time. The people we were reaching out to did.
It was small marketing agencies that wasted my time.
One in particular wasted 4 months of my life.
After a few emails back and forth. Off the back of the cold outreach. I arranged a call with an agency owner. Discussing our one-click reporting and how it could help him.
I won’t bore you with the full details.
He declared interest in the service. Introduced me to one of his staff who dealt with the reporting side of things. And I agreed to give them a 30-day free trial, it’s 14 days if you sign up via our website.
Fast forward 3 months. They were still on a free trial because the owner still wanted to “wash its face”.
Yes, his exact words.
I pushed back.
Bending Over Backwards For Nothing
We agreed that they could subscribe to our lowest prices tier. He wasn’t willing to go with the top price as he hadn’t passed the cost onto his customers yet.
Why that was my problem I don’t know.
Anyway.
He wanted the white label reporting enabled for him at a lower price point. Even though this feature was only available on the highest price tier.
But I thought, let’s do it.
To get him onboard. Work with them. To solve their headaches and get insightful feedback. It would be a “win-win”. Or so I thought.
So I set it all up for him and the girl I’d had a lot of calls with.
When it came to then subscribing.
Nothing. They never subscribed
They ghosted me.
And wouldn’t reply to my emails or messages.
Well over 4 months of effort for nothing.
I wasn’t happy.
That’s marketing agencies for you.
The Hidden Costs of A Side Business
Another problem is if you don’t get traction. Money in the early days.
Those costs seem to rise as you try and figure out how to market your project.
And as I started building Elementary Analytics in 2018. With a “re-launch” in 2021. I’d committed to a tech stack that had a beefy running cost to it.
I’ve got monthly hosting costs of around £65 a month.
After chatting with my business partner. I did a rough calculation
If I carried on with the current product till the end of 2024.
That would be 4 years of hosting costs (at least). 12 months, multiplied by 4 years. Then multiplied by the average hosting of £65 a month.
That’s £3,120 I’d spend on running the software.
Add on the fact I then ended up paying for monthly subscriptions to Canva, Loom, MailerLite, Make, Xero, and SiteGround. To name a few.
As well as the money to test paid ads to try and scale the project in different ways.
I reckon I’m at least £15K in the hole since I first put the project into “Production”
Yes, I’ve made money back. And yes, for certain periods, it covered the running costs.
But I’m out of pocket with Elementary Analytics.
It’s meant to be a lifestyle business.
One that funds my life, not slowly draining it.
Draining cash out of my salary and savings.
Draining time from my week, every week.
Sucking the life out of me and having to deal with people who want something for nothing.
It was time for a change.
What Pivoting Looks Like
Even with all this.
I didn’t want to shut the project down completely.
However, it had to go back to the original goal of the project.
To be a lifestyle business.
To “pivot” with the project.
What does that look like from a “real-world” perspective?
Get The Costs To Zero
The first thing I had to do was to see if I could get the costs down. To zero.
I used Loom to record and host the “Help Centre” videos.
And if I cancelled the subscription, I could still have the videos hosted, but I couldn’t create any new ones. First cost savings.
I then cancelled the MailerLite subscription. Again I could use the free tier. Which was more than enough for now.
The other costs I couldn’t get rid of as they were for running my business PHH Digital. As well as for other projects.
But the £65 a month for hosting had to go.
So I spent a day or two seeing if I could create a new “lite” or “diet” version of the SaaS product. That costs nothing to run each month.
After a week or so of research and tinkering.
I’d got a version up and running. That worked as I wanted. But had zero running cost, it wouldn’t take money out of my pocket until we could get a lot of paying customers for it.
Result.
Go After People With Money.
I have a catch-up every 2 weeks with a friend of mine. Even though we’ve never met in person.
Ah, the joys of lockdown and having a podcast.
Anyway.
He labelled it our “Circle” call. The idea behind it. We catch up regularly and see if we can support each other and our business ideas.
This one week. I went over everything I’ve just discussed with you, with Chris. Ending on the fact I’d created a “lite” version of Elementary Analytics. That had only GA4 and Google Search Console in it.
And this is why I like things like this. These “mastermind” meetings are so powerful.
Chris comes from the SEO world.
He said I should go after SEO executives with the new version of Elementary Analytics. Ones who work for big companies.
Saying that if they find it useful. And the price point it’s daft money, they will pay for it. They have a budget for tools and this sort of thing so it’s an easier sell.
Perfect.
Pivoting = Narrowing Your Focus
It felt like I had a direction to “pivot in”.
My current “customer avatar” of small marketing agencies with 1-5 employees, wasn’t working.
It seems that they didn’t have money to be able to pay for my SaaS. That their margins are so tight already. They can’t justify the spending.
They would rather spend 5, or 6 days creating reports by hand. Than spend £99 a month on a service that can do it all in 30 minutes.
Go figure!
Also. Every agency wants something different.
An example recently.
An agency started the 14-day free trial. After a day or two I got an email from them asking. “Is there a way I can see 3 years’ worth of Instagram post history?” As well as other requests.
No two emails have ever asked for the same thing.
It’s soul-destroying.
That’s why the idea of pivoting to have my ideal customer being SEO executives is more appealing.
More so if because they work for larger businesses with far bigger budgets.
And the fact they will have the same headaches. From looking and reviewing data to creating reports.
It may make the whole thing easier.
Easier to build and to have a clear product roadmap.
Easier to market, to research what people want and to get in front of those people.
Even if that means cold outreach, which I don’t like. But I’ve got an angle now. A conversion I can have.
Pivot To What You Want
Now. This goes against a lot of advice.
Build something people what, that solves a headache. That impacts millions to make millions.
Also, people say there are riches in the niches.
For me. I started building Elementary Analytics to solve my headache.
I wanted to see all my Google Analytics profiles on a single screen. Regardless of which business it was for. What email address do you have to log in with
And I did that.
Then it snowballed.
Add More And More Functionality
Yes, I wanted to add Facebook Page insights and Twitter analytics. So I could see how well a startup I’d founded was doing.
But I’m no longer involved with that business.
What do I want?
Well, the original idea is still what I want. To see all the key metrics from Google Analytics for all my websites. And I have more sites now than I did in 2018.
OK, let’s do that then.
Also, I want to focus on SEO.
Not only for Elementary Analytics. But another project of mine, BAITCAMP. As well as for my blog.
OK, let’s link that platform too.
And that’s it.
Find People Like You
That’s what I want from the product. It also ties into the SEO executive that Chris said I go after.
OK, I’ve got a direction.
If nothing else. It will help me and my business partner with our GA4 and GSC data.
In a world of 8 Billion people (at the time of writing this article). There must be people who are like me and would use the product.
If not.
Well, it costs nothing to run now.
So, if I pivot to targeting SEO executives.
And if I talk about the project how it helps me and what I want to achieve.
Will there be others that it can help?
Only time will tell.
Pivot By Removing Features Not Adding
When a software startup talks about pivoting.
They end up discussing what new feature or direction they went in.
What they ended up coding, building and adding.
What if I do the opposite?
With Elementary Analytics Version 1. We have data from around 10 different platforms integrated into the service.
As well as things like client dashboards. One-click reporting system. Weekly emails. A daily insight email if traffic goes up by 5%.
All cool stuff.
But no one cares.
It hasn’t been used so far.
So, in the new version of the dashboard. I’m removing the Google & Meta ads integrations. As well as the Facebook page & LinkedIn company page data. And there will be no Instagram, TikTok or YouTube stats in there either.
The emails will also get switched off. Although I may add the weekly email back in if it doesn’t cost anything to run.
I’m also ditching the reports and client dashboard from the migration to V2. Again, I may add in reporting (but more on this in a second).
Less Is More
I added all this “cool stuff” because I believed it was what people wanted.
What they said they wanted. What people told me people will pay for.
But they haven’t.
It’s hard to know why. Is my marketing not up to scratch? Because there are similar services to mine who are making a go of it.
Yes, they are VC-backed and provide more features that allow people to tailor what data they see.
Does this mean I’ve not hit product-market fit?
Yes!
And I may never do with the current version.
So, if I strip it back and start again, I may.
This time I need to follow the paying customers. Not what people say will work.
And that will be hard.
Using The Dreaded AI
I’m very bullish about using AI in your SaaS or startup.
In other words, don’t do it.
Well, I’m not being honest with that statement.
If you build on top of AI. That the features and benefits of the product are all tied back to the AI. To the IP of whatever model you use.
You’ve built a house on quicksand.
But, if you take AI away. And your product still works, it still brings value to people. You’ve built your house with strong foundations.
The way I’m thinking about integrating with AI models is to “juice” the product.
Is there a way to take what I’ve built with both V1 and V2 of Elementary Analytics? Pass the data over to an AI model and do a lot of prep work behind the scenes. Then allow a user to chat with the model. Chat with their “data”?
Can I use it to create reports and other cool output? That will replace the reporting service I built in V1.
Going back to the house-building analogy.
It’s like building an extension onto your house. Like adding a cinema room, man cave and home gym.
But if they go away. You’ve still got an amazing home to live in.
That’s how you should use AI in your SaaS startup.
And I’ve done that with V2 of Elementary Analytics.
Will this help it become more successful than V1?
Only time will tell.
Conclusion: Pivot Your Saas
The software and tech industry loves to talk about pivoting and how successful it was for them.
But there aren’t any guidebooks to help you do this.
And it will look different for you than it will for me.
My experience with pivoting with Elementary Analytics hasn’t gone well. And I’m in the process of doing it again.
This time it’s different, and I’m pivoting on four fronts.
One, make sure it costs me nothing to run the startup. Or spend as little time and money on the project. Until we start seeing a good ROI.
Two, focus on a different “customer avatar”. One that is narrower, not a broad industry. Also, one that has the resources to pay for the service.
Three, remove as many current features and functionality as possible. To narrow the product for the new customer avatar. But also to build something useful for YOU first.
Four, and I’ve been reluctant about doing this. But jump on the AI bandwagon. Can I use AI to “juice” the product? Give it an edge and make it as valuable as possible for as little effort on my side.
It’s all about getting an ROI from the pivot.
Your project may not be dead yet. Don’t bury it in your project graveyard like I’ve done so many times. Think about how you can pivot, fast.
Pivoting is a sensible option.
If you liked this article. And liked the fact I talked about shutting down projects. Even though they were making money. All is not lost if that happens. Check out I’ve Just Made £34.84 From A Start-Up I Shutdown In 2021
Oh, and if you want a better way to manage your projects? I’ve built this project management tool in Notion that you may find useful.
