# Pivots

URL: /business/lifecycle/pivots · Id: `page:business/lifecycle/pivots`

> What counts as a pivot, what triggers a Pivot review, and how a Startup changes course without losing a record.

A pivot changes a [Startup](/business/nouns/startup)'s founding [Hypothesis](/business/nouns/hypothesis) at the root: its customer, its [Problem](/business/nouns/problem), or its approach. It is a [Decision](/business/nouns/decision) and a new [Version](/business/nouns/version), never a fresh start.

## What counts as a pivot
The founding Hypothesis has five slots. Changing the customer, the Problem or the approach is a pivot. Adding an [Offer](/business/nouns/offer), an [Interface](/business/nouns/interface), a human step or a second side of a marketplace is growth on the same root.

Take a Startup that sells an API of restaurant health-inspection scores to insurers.

| [Change](/business/nouns/change) | A pivot? |
| --- | --- |
| Sell to restaurant groups instead of insurers | Yes: a new customer |
| Solve kitchen staffing gaps instead of inspection risk | Yes: a new Problem |
| An [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) that files corrective plans instead of an API | Yes: a new approach |
| Add an MCP server beside the API | No: a new Interface |
| Add a $49 self-serve plan | No: a new Offer |

The line matters because a pivot invalidates [Evidence](/business/nouns/evidence). [Interviews](/business/nouns/interview) with insurers say nothing about restaurant groups, so the customer slot drops back to the grade the new customer has earned.

## When to review
[Pivot review](/workflows/processes/strategy/pivot-review) runs whenever the [Founder](/agents/founding/founder) asks, and it runs on its own on four signals:

- The first outside paid [Order](/business/nouns/order) has not arrived by the Startup's first-revenue date, 30 days after launch by default.
- [Weeks flat](/agents/founding#weeks-flat) reaches the Startup's line: eight weeks of outside revenue growth below target.
- The riskiest slot is still graded opinion after four weekly tests.
- Office hours name the founding Hypothesis as the week's biggest risk.

The review compares the Evidence with what each [Goal](/business/nouns/goal) promised and ends in one Decision: persevere, iterate, or pivot. Iterating changes an Offer, a [Price](/business/nouns/price) or a [Play](/business/nouns/play) on the same root; pivoting changes the root.

## How a pivot is recorded
A pivot is a Change to the founding Hypothesis, merged as a new Version. The Decision behind it records the options, the Evidence, the choice, and what would reverse it.

[Site](/business/nouns/site) copy, Offers, Prices and Plays are compiled from the Hypothesis, and each records the slot and Version it came from. After a pivot, everything compiled from a changed slot is rebuilt, and everything else stays as it was.

Nothing is lost. Interviews, Evidence, [Customers](/business/nouns/customer) and Orders stay on the Startup, and the old Version stays one [revert](/business/nouns/change/revert) away.

## What happens to the state
A pivot does not reset the [Lifecycle](/business/nouns/lifecycle). The Startup keeps its state, and every entry check that reads a changed slot runs again against the new Version.

The inspection Startup pivots to restaurant groups while [Live](/business/lifecycle/states/live). Its Site, API and payouts still pass, so it stays Live.

The rebuilt pricing [Page](/business/nouns/page) and Offer reach Customers at the next deploy. A check that fails opens a [Task](/business/nouns/task) for the [Role](/business/nouns/role) that owns it.

## Pivot or start a sibling
A Startup with paying Customers has a second option: keep running and test the new direction beside it. [clone](/business/nouns/startup/clone) copies the definition into a sibling Startup with the changed slot, and both run until the Evidence decides.

The [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) works this way by default. One [Idea](/business/nouns/idea) runs as several sibling Startups that differ in one slot. The winner's choices flow back into the [Startup Template](/business/nouns/startup-template) every new Startup inherits.

## Next
[Research and define](/workflows/lifecycle/research-and-define) covers grading the Evidence a pivot rests on, and the [Lifecycle overview](/business/lifecycle) shows where each state's number comes from.