3 pieces of advice from Philly founders who leaned into the pivot

When starting a company, you can never be sure where, exactly, that journey will lead.

Case in point: These three Philly founders started with one idea, then pivoted hard to keep their companies alive.

Here are a few pieces of wisdom based on their experiences:

Go with your gut

Yasmine Mustafa, CEO and cofounder of ROAR, said during the “Pivots, Persistence and Perseverance” panel at Philly Startup Leaders’ Founder Factory this week that her company started as a wearable self-defense technology targeted at women (and was originally called ROAR for Good). The company now creates workplace safety technology for people in the healthcare and hospitality industries.

When enacting this pivot, Mustafa said, she relied on support from her network of investors and advisors to help her figure out how to move forward. She advises other founders to listen to their gut. In her case, she said she felt like she should have pivoted earlier than she actually did.

“We should have pivoted six months earlier, and I kept kind of ignoring the fact that things weren’t working and trying different things, when I knew deep down that a B2C was not for us,” she said.

Just start

Shannon Morales, founder and CEO of Tribaja, said the company started as a newsletter of resources and information for professionals before pivoting into a diverse talent network specifically focused on tech professionals.

Morales’ advice for founders is to just start: It’s important to have a goal or mission guiding you, but also be open to adapting as things change.

“You’ll continuously revise and reiterate as you grow and as your users kind of drive the changes in your product,” she said.

You’re not a failure

Cody Eddings, CEO and cofounder of SnapRefund, said his company started as a peer-to-peer payment platform, but pivoted to be a platform for businesses to pay individuals. (Fun fact: He was also an early developer for ROAR.) Now the company is focused on helping insurance companies send payment to customers faster.

Eddings said his advice to founders going through a time of change is to separate your self worth from the success of your business. Just because you have to pivot or a pivot fails, he said, does not mean you are less of a person.

This editorial article is a part of Resilient Tech Careers Month of Technical.ly’s editorial calendar.