Latest news with #pivot
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Revel shuts down its ride-hail business to focus on EV charging
Revel has shut down its ride-hailing service in New York City, in yet another pivot for the company that started out by renting electric scooters in 2019. Moving forward, Revel will instead focus on its nascent EV charging business, which includes operating five stations in New York and one in San Francisco. A visit to Revel's app on Monday showed a message thanking users for 'riding with us the last 4 years!' and announcing it has 'permanently closed our rideshare service.' Revel's website echoed the same message, adding: 'Moving forward, Revel will continue to grow our Fast Charging business with more sites and cities opening soon.' 'We have made the difficult decision that the best way we can keep the EV transition moving forward is by ending our rideshare service and focusing on building the fast charging infrastructure our biggest cities need to keep going electric,' Revel co-founder and CEO Frank Reig said in a statement to TechCrunch. Revel will sell or return the bright-blue Tesla and Kia vehicles that make up its fleet, according to Bloomberg News. The company will also sell the 165 'for-hire vehicle license plates' attached to those vehicles, which Reig told Bloomberg could be worth between $20,000 and $25,000 each. Revel revealed its first chargers in 2021, around the same time it launched the ride-hail fleet. But the company slow adoption in those early years for its charging business. The company told TechCrunch that total utilization of the network in early 2023 was just 21%, with 19% of that coming from Revel's own ride-hail fleet. Fast forward to early 2025, and that utilization rate had jumped to 45%, with only 12% of that charging coming from Revel's fleet. The company got a big boost in 2024 when Uber struck a deal to send many of its drivers to Revel's chargers. Revel says it plans to have 'over 400' charging stalls operational in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco by the end of 2026. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
TechCrunch
5 days ago
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Revel shuts down its ride-hail business to focus on EV charging
Revel has shut down its ride-hailing service in New York City, in yet another pivot for the company that started out by renting electric scooters in 2019. Moving forward, Revel will instead focus on its nascent EV charging business, which includes operating five stations in New York and one in San Francisco. A visit to Revel's app on Monday showed a message thanking users for 'riding with us the last 4 years!' and announcing it has 'permanently closed our rideshare service.' Revel's website echoed the same message, adding: 'Moving forward, Revel will continue to grow our Fast Charging business with more sites and cities opening soon.' 'We have made the difficult decision that the best way we can keep the EV transition moving forward is by ending our rideshare service and focusing on building the fast charging infrastructure our biggest cities need to keep going electric,' Revel co-founder and CEO Frank Reig said in a statement to TechCrunch. Revel will sell or return the bright-blue Tesla and Kia vehicles that make up its fleet, according to Bloomberg News. The company will also sell the 165 'for-hire vehicle license plates' attached to those vehicles, which Reig told Bloomberg could be worth between $20,000 and $25,000 each. Revel revealed its first chargers in 2021, around the same time it launched the ride-hail fleet. But the company slow adoption in those early years for its charging business. The company told TechCrunch that total utilization of the network in early 2023 was just 21%, with 19% of that coming from Revel's own ride-hail fleet. Fast forward to early 2025, and that utilization rate had jumped to 45%, with only 12% of that charging coming from Revel's fleet. The company got a big boost in 2024 when Uber struck a deal to send many of its drivers to Revel's chargers. Revel says it plans to have 'over 400' charging stalls operational in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco by the end of 2026.
Forbes
06-08-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How A Strategic Pivot Saved A Company From The Brink
When growth stalls or the market shifts, survival depends on more than persistence--it demands transformation. Following is a real world case study in what it takes to navigate inflection points, recognize when the old roadmap no longer applies, and take decisive action before it's too late. For founders staring down uncertainty, this story offers an inside look at the high stakes decisions that separate companies that fade from those that move ahead. Scott Tsangeos didn't set out to build software for strength coaches. In fact, the original vision for Olympus was to give strength training athletes the kind of digital community that endurance athletes had in Strava—a sleek, social platform where lifters could log workouts, share progress, and connect with others in the strength world. It never occurred to him he would need a major pivot for his company to survive. 'There was this glaring hole,' Tsangeos says. 'Strava had completely overlooked strength training, and I felt like that created a massive opportunity.' It did—just not the kind he expected. A Community Without Scale Olympus launched with a clean interface, a loyal early user base, and a bold mission to unite the strength community online. But the product quickly ran into two existential challenges. First, growth stalled. 'The users we had loved the product—and most of them still use it—but we struggled to create virality,' says Tsangeos. 'This kind of product lives or dies on network effects, and we didn't crack the code on social growth.' Second, consistently generating revenue was a challenge. Without scale, ads weren't feasible, and the product wasn't feature-rich enough to justify a premium subscription. 'We were skeptical of compromising the user experience with advertising,' Tsangeos told me. 'In hindsight, I would've brought in someone with deep digital marketing or influencer experience. Instead, we tried to hack it ourselves.' By the end of that chapter, Olympus was at a fork in the road. 'It was either figure something out that worked—or shut down. The team morale stayed strong because we loved the product. But it was clear we didn't have a business.' The lifeline did not come from a pitch deck or a VC meeting—but from a cold email. Since he was a graduate student, Tsangeos reached out to the head of Northwestern University's Olympic Sports Performance. 'I asked how they tracked training data. And their answer shocked me,' he says. Coaches preferred pen and paper over apps. It was faster, more flexible, and less distracting for athletes. But they knew they were missing out on something big: data. They needed software that could turn handwritten notes into actionable performance insights—something that could reduce injury risk, track progress, and improve outcomes, but without changing the way they worked. 'They basically told us the ideal product,' Tsangeos says. 'It was a wake-up call. We had been building something cool. But this was something that was actually needed.' The Olympus team pivoted fast—and hard. They realized they needed to turn the handwritten data into insights via software. Now coaches collect the completed workout cards, and scan them to get a digital PDF which they upload into the software; it reads the handwriting and creates charts, dashboards, and analytics. The coaches can then analyze trends and performance metrics on the web portal. Olympus also sends the results to a mobile app for the athletes to review. The original mobile app, built for consumers, found new life as a tool for athlete engagement and remote training. 'We had to be decisive,' Tsangeos says. 'It was pivot or die; the choice was clear. We didn't hedge. We rebranded the company around this new insight: Olympus lets coaches keep the speed of pen and paper, but gives them the power of software.' The market response was immediate. 'Almost every coach we talked to said the same thing: 'This is exactly what I've been looking for.' It was the first time we felt like we were ahead of the curve.' The problem Olympus now solves is far more specific—and salient--than before. 'Coaches are expected to build faster, stronger, more resilient athletes, and while their coaching is elite, they leave a lot on the table when it comes to using performance data and analytics. We help them do that without forcing them to change how they work,' Tsangeos explained. Since the pivot, Olympus has raised a small friends and family round, secured multiple grants and accolades, and expanded its footprint with high school and collegiate coaches nationwide. Monthly revenue has climbed steadily since relaunching in January. And the product development approach has matured, too. 'There's a huge difference between someone saying they love your free product and someone actually paying for it,' Tsangeos says. 'Early on, we mistook positive feedback for product-market fit. Now, we sell before we build. We validate that customers are willing to pay, then prototype the solution.' Looking back, Tsangeos believes many early-stage startups die not from one bad decision—but from death by a thousand hedges. They are often afraid to pivot – and they are really afraid to pivot significantly. But that can be a huge mistake. 'If you're going to pivot, burn the boats," he told me. "As a startup, you can't afford to straddle two directions. I'd rather fail fast and hard than compound small failures until it's too late to fix.' Olympus is far from the company it started as—but for Tsangeos, that's the point: 'The product changed. The market changed. What didn't change was our mission to serve athletes. Now we're doing it by helping the people who coach them.'
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
4 Steps Of Pivoting In The Age Of AI
The ability to pivot effectively has become less of an occasional necessity and more of a core leadership competency. Especially as artificial intelligence reshapes entire industries at breakneck speed, start-up leaders are discovering that successful pivots require a unique blend of analytical rigor, emotional intelligence, and strategic courage. My conversations with four leaders—each navigating their own transformational journey—a clear framework emerges for how to orchestrate meaningful change without losing your organizational soul. When Rujul Zaparde, co-founder of procurement platform Zip, saw the emergence of ChatGPT, he didn't rush to slap AI onto existing features. Instead, he took his team back to fundamentals. "We really took a first principles approach to the company and the product to sort of say, okay, how do we, like, if we were to solve this problem, like, you know, the problem we solve for, like, what's the best way to solve it today?" This methodical approach proved transformative. Rather than viewing AI as a trendy add-on—which generally doesn't solve any real problem—Zaparde's team recognized they were uniquely positioned as an "orchestration layer" with access to supplier data, contract information, and financial systems that individual point solutions couldn't match. Their AI capabilities have since been used over four and a half million times. The lesson? Before pivoting, strip away assumptions and return to core problems. 1. What are your customers struggling with? 2. How intense is this problem? 3. How often do they experience this problem? 4. What's left short with your current approach? 5. How might your leverage any accumulated strengths and capabilities to develop a new approach? That requires writing, which brings us to step number two. Perhaps nowhere is the complexity of organizational pivots more apparent than at Chef, the marketplace connecting local cooks with neighbors. CEO Joey Grassia discovered that even when data clearly indicated the need for change, execution required something more nuanced than compelling metrics. "It really did take us 12 to 18 months to change the culture of the company so that people were willing to question what we've always done and willing to acknowledge that we may have to burn the boats on our old business to make the leap into the new one," Grassia reflects. The breakthrough came when Grassia crystallized the company's direction in a comprehensive memo outlining three specific milestones around growth, efficiency, and scale. "It wasn't until I wrote that memo and it was like, these are the three milestones of building a great business. Our existing business has no chance of accomplishing these things, so we have to disrupt ourselves. That was really the turning point." The transformation was dramatic. Writing a memo is one of the best ways to fast-track clarity. Since the pivot, Chef moved from standalone orders to standardized subscriptions, reducing customer cognitive load from 25 minutes per order to under 75 seconds for subsequent weeks. Forty percent of existing users opted into the new recurring model without any marketing push, and user spend tripled. Grassia found that successful pivots require what he calls "the wisdom to know that you need to do it and the courage to actually take the leap." But between wisdom and courage lies the critical work of building organizational conviction through clear, logical communication. While data and strategy provide the rational foundation for pivots, Charlie Greene, founder of memory-preservation platform Remento and recent Shark Tank winner, demonstrates why the most successful transformations also require deep emotional intelligence. Greene learned this lesson through experience: "Pivots are incredibly easy to talk about in retrospect, they're incredibly difficult to navigate as they're unfolding. Because you never wake up one day and realize that today is the day you're going to pivot." For Remento, the pivot from a conversation-structuring tool to a book-creation platform wasn't just about product features—it required reimagining their entire value proposition. The original product had high download rates but low usage. "While we had built a product that aligned perfectly with what users told us they wanted, we quickly learned that our solution didn't remove nearly enough of the friction needed to spur adoption." Greene's approach to managing this uncertainty offers a lesson in communication. "One of our values is clear as kind," he explains. "Being able to say to your team, look, here's where we are right now. Does anyone disagree with where we are right now? You know, like, okay, we can agree this is where we are right now. Can we all agree where we need to be in three months?" Greene emphasizes bringing teams into the decision process while maintaining ultimate accountability—a delicate balance between vulnerability and authority. In the next decade, AI will likely disrupt every company and every industry. If you're not examining how true that's likely to be for your business, you'll get swallowed by a competitor. Bryan Power, Head of People at Nextdoor, shared just how urgent this transformation is. Having navigated multiple organizational turnarounds, Power sees AI as fundamentally different from previous technological shifts. "One of the major disruptions that AI is doing is certain activities now the turnaround is so fast that managers have a mental model of how long something takes in their head because they did it when they were a contributor. But this is now something that takes minutes that used to take days." This speed transformation creates unprecedented management challenges. As Power explains, "What happens to those five days has not really been worked through because as an employee I'm like, you're paying me to do this thing. It doesn't matter. Fifteen minutes, five days. I did what you told me to do." Power's response at Nextdoor has been characteristically direct: comprehensive AI training programs and a cultural mandate that everyone must engage with these tools. "I can actually tell if someone's been using AI for a month or three months or for six months," he notes. "I can see the learning moves that people make in the early going, and by extension I can see when they haven't made them yet." The broader implication is sobering: "I saw people not embrace the Internet. And like, think about that point of view today is just mind boggling to me. But in my time, in my career, my early 20s, I saw the people that embraced it and it just completely made the first five to 10 years of their career because they were out front." Four key insights emerge from these leaders' experiences: Start with your problem. Before implementing any change, return to fundamental questions about the problems you're solving and whether current approaches can scale to meet future demands. Build internal logic through clear communication. Successful pivots require more than good ideas—they need comprehensive strategies with measurable milestones that help teams understand not just what's changing, but why change is inevitable. Balance data with emotional intelligence. While metrics provide direction, the human element of change management—creating psychological safety, maintaining transparency, and holding space for uncertainty—often determines execution success. Move quickly. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence as an optional enhancement, treat it as a fundamental shift that requires organizational learning and adaptation at every level. Finally, the leaders profiled here share one crucial characteristic: they didn't wait for perfect information before acting. Instead, they developed frameworks for making decisions under uncertainty while building organizational capabilities to execute those decisions effectively. In an era where the pace of change continues to accelerate, the question isn't whether your organization will need to pivot—it's whether you're building the cultural and strategic capabilities to do so successfully. The most successful pivots combine analytical rigor with human wisdom, creating organizations that don't just survive change but thrive because of it.
Entrepreneur
02-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How to Turn Setbacks Into Strategic Advantages
Here's how setbacks — whether it's a product flop, a missed market or internal friction — can become the turning points that drive lasting growth. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. In the unpredictable world of entrepreneurship, the ability to pivot is not just a survival mechanism; it's often the defining trait that separates long-term success from failure. Over the years, I've co-founded and operated companies across proptech, fintech, insurance and media. Some succeeded, some failed. But the ones that made it through did so because we knew when and how to pivot. The startup world romanticizes the grind — the late nights, the pitch decks, the moments of inspiration that become unicorns. But the reality is far messier. It's the misaligned products, misunderstood markets and management conflicts that really test your mettle. These moments don't signal the end; they're the inflection points that force you to evaluate what's working, what's not and what might be possible with a different lens. Related: 3 Steps to Take to Successfully Pivot Your Company and Skyrocket Revenue Recognizing the pivot point A good pivot doesn't come from panic — it comes from insight. One of the most critical lessons I've learned is that your original idea might not be wrong, but your market timing, audience or delivery might be. The art lies in seeing where the value really lives and having the courage to move toward it. When we transitioned one of our early ventures from a real estate lead generation business into a dynamic social platform for real estate professionals, it wasn't because the original concept had no merit. It was because the landscape had shifted. Agents didn't just need leads; they needed community, tools, validation and collaboration. And if we hadn't moved fast enough, someone else would have. Setbacks aren't failures — they're feedback Think of failed features, products or campaigns not as wasted effort, but as data points. They teach you what your customers don't want, which is just as valuable as what they do want. Some of the best companies have emerged from well-documented failures: Slack started as a failed gaming company called Tiny Speck. When the game didn't take off, the team realized the internal communication tool they had built was more promising. Instagram was originally Burbn, a bloated location check-in app with way too many features. Its pivot into a photo-sharing platform with filters came from stripping away the noise. Shopify began as an online snowboard store. The founders grew frustrated with the lack of ecommerce tools, so they built their own — and then realized that was the real opportunity. Each of these companies listened carefully to what the market was telling them, even if it wasn't what they wanted to hear at the time. Related: Is It Time to Pivot Your Business? 3 Clear Signs You Shouldn't Ignore Courage over ego One of the hardest things for a founder to do is admit that their "baby" isn't working. It takes courage to step back and ask: Is this idea worth fighting for, or is there something better within reach? Letting go of a failed strategy doesn't mean you're abandoning your mission. It means you're respecting it enough to find the right path forward. Often, pivots aren't 180-degree turns; they're 20- to 30-degree adjustments that reframe your positioning, your user experience or your revenue model. But those slight shifts can change everything. Make data your compass A pivot should be guided by evidence, not emotion. Customer behavior, user engagement metrics, churn rates and direct feedback are your GPS. If no one's clicking your core feature but they're all obsessed with a secondary tool you built as a bonus, that's a clue. If your churn is high despite marketing spend, maybe the product isn't delivering value. If your sales cycles are too long, maybe you're targeting the wrong buyer. You won't always have perfect data, but you'll have enough to make an informed bet. And in early-stage ventures, every decision is a bet — you just want to make the smartest one possible. Team alignment is critical A pivot doesn't just change the business — it changes the psychology of the team. You need buy-in. You need shared belief. Communicate the "why" behind the pivot as clearly as the "what." If you're asking people to change direction, you owe them clarity and context. Some of the most painful business lessons I've learned came from not aligning leadership or investor expectations before making a major shift. Transparency early prevents friction later. Related: Why Founders Should Always View Pivots as Opportunities From setback to strategic advantage Here's the truth: In almost every story of business success, there's a moment of pivot. Airbnb struggled to get traction until it leaned into the design of its listings. Twitter began as a podcasting company. YouTube started as a video dating site. The myth of the perfect business plan executed flawlessly is just that — a myth. Great companies are built by people who respond to feedback, evolve under pressure and reframe adversity into advantage. If you're in the trenches, facing a wall, you're not alone — and you're not stuck. A pivot might be exactly what your company needs. The key is to stay curious, stay humble and keep moving. Some of the greatest breakthroughs in business don't come from doubling down; they come from turning the wheel.
