Has what you started off with gone in a completely different direction? Is that okay?

[Fab89]

<div class="bbWrapper">Hi,<br /> <br /> I have some experience with programming and I think it&#039;s my best skill at the moment to offer with a business. My idea is to start helping people with websites or making an application that could help them. I&#039;m working in my current job and then quit as soon as I feel a little traction to put more time into it.<br /> <br /> There&#039;s no planned out goal at the moment but what I&#039;ve read on this forum and the books seems to be telling me to just do anything and figure it out along the way.<br /> <br /> Has anyone here started off doing one thing and it&#039;s ended up as something completely different? I was just going to ride the waves of whatever comes my way and just keep putting effort into where I end up.<br /> <br /> Not sure if there&#039;s anything wrong with this. Should I be a little more focused in knowing exactly what I should be doing? I would like to hear of your experiences.<br /> <br /> Cheers,<br /> <br /> Fab</div>

 

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[Lex DeVille]

<div class="bbWrapper">Mine just went a completely different direction. <br /> Here are some reasons why:<br /> <br /> 1) I wasn&#039;t clear about my goals and what I really want.<br /> 2) The thing I was doing won&#039;t scale to the level I&#039;m aiming for.<br /> 3) I have commitment issues that I need to overcome.<br /> <br /> Getting more focused feels like it is correcting these issues. It started with getting clear about what I <i>actually</i> want and how big I want to go. Once I had that figured out, it became clear the path I was taking to get there simply wasn&#039;t enough. It won&#039;t get the job done. <br /> <br /> So I had to make adjustments and change what I am doing. Now that I&#039;m focused on what I&#039;m trying to accomplish, and figured out a path that has a chance to get me there, the only thing left to do is swing with everything I&#039;ve got and see if I hit a home run.<br /> <br /> If you take action without a sense of direction, you might not end up where you want to go. So it makes sense to start by figuring out where you want to end up so you can take a reasonable path to get there.<br /> <br /> But just FYI, I&#039;m not there yet.</div>

 

[Solrac]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 53397" data-quote="Fab89" data-source="post: 699000" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=699000" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-699000">Fab89 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Hi,<br /> <br /> I have some experience with programming and I think it&#039;s my best skill at the moment to offer with a business. My idea is to start helping people with websites or making an application that could help them. I&#039;m working in my current job and then quit as soon as I feel a little traction to put more time into it.<br /> <br /> There&#039;s no planned out goal at the moment but what I&#039;ve read on this forum and the books seems to be telling me to just do anything and figure it out along the way.<br /> <br /> Has anyone here started off doing one thing and it&#039;s ended up as something completely different? I was just going to ride the waves of whatever comes my way and just keep putting effort into where I end up.<br /> <br /> Not sure if there&#039;s anything wrong with this. Should I be a little more focused in knowing exactly what I should be doing? I would like to hear of your experiences.<br /> <br /> Cheers,<br /> <br /> Fab </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Ahhh yes, the famous &quot;pivot&quot;.<br /> <br /> There have been plenty of companies that ended up doing something that&#039;s totally different than what they initially set out to do. Notably a few come to mind: Twitter, Starbucks, Paypal, YouTube. <br /> <br /> One could argue that maybe there wasn&#039;t a strong enough need, or some maybe another opportunity showed up or made itself clear. But lot&#039;s of people start off doing something &amp; notice something else within reason and switch to focus on that. People don&#039;t realize certain things until they get in the game.<br /> <br /> What you DONT want is to be that person that is constantly &quot;pivoting&quot;. This is a lack of discipline &amp; probably just action faking. <br /> <br /> I&#039;d also argue that &quot;going with the flow&quot; isn&#039;t a bad strategy. It&#039;s better than NO strategy that&#039;s for sure. And you have no idea where you might end up. Just make sure you have feedback loops to monitor your progress.</div>

 

[Fab89]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 24561" data-quote="Solrac" data-source="post: 699024" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=699024" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-699024">Solrac said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Just make sure you have feedback loops to monitor your progress. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>What feedback would you monitor? What people like about what you&#039;re doing?</div>

 

[Fab89]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 13831" data-quote="Lex DeVille" data-source="post: 699021" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=699021" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-699021">Lex DeVille said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> ... I had to make adjustments and change what I am doing. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>What adjustments did you make?</div>

 

[Solrac]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 53397" data-quote="Fab89" data-source="post: 699159" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=699159" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-699159">Fab89 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> What feedback would you monitor? What people like about what you&#039;re doing? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Sure fair question. I generally monitor important metrics. <br /> <br /> You have to figure out what those are for the business and your progress. Let&#039;s say I&#039;m editing a video, I might monitor how complex the project in correlation to my output time. If I see that number going down (taking less time) I know I&#039;m going in the right direction. <br /> <br /> You might do this exercise weekly for some things, annually for others, daily for others. It depends on what it is your monitoring. So you gotta sit down and monitor something like if you take x action it produces y results in profit, or net loss. Do you understand what I mean?</div>

 

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[Flybye]

<div class="bbWrapper">My family also had to adapt with our retail store. We started out selling a whole lot of overstock items, but we discovered the people in the area really didn’t know how to appreciate the quality of the our stock. We also had to shift the type of clothing we had. Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s the cheap things people want.<br /> <br /> We went through a huge learning curve which could have been avoided if we learned the demographics first. But we spoke to our customers, and we adapted. We almost started over again, but at least we know the special sauce needed.</div>

 

[TonyStark]

<div class="bbWrapper">Yes. But my Fastlane mindset hasn’t changed.</div>

 

[vshetty.vs]

<div class="bbWrapper">You&#039;re gonna have to pivot irrespective of how awesome your idea is.<br /> <br /> Just start by providing value to people. As you do this, listen to them. Hear their problems. Take feedback and improve.<br /> <br /> Taking any action is better than not getting started at all.</div>

 

[Fab89]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 24561" data-quote="Solrac" data-source="post: 699179" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=699179" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-699179">Solrac said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Do you understand what I mean? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Yea, Cheers!</div>