Pivot Away from Pivot

Pivoting is all the rage in startup land. But it is a concept that I believe is extremely harmful to entrepreneurs. Pivoting (and "failing fast") is exactly the wrong approach to launching a new company. 

The problems with "pivoting" don't get enough attention. Venture investors and successful entrepreneurs love to tell the stories of the early days of their startups. 

And this is understandable. I have been there, and the early days are exciting. You start with what seems to be a great idea, you raise venture capital, you start hiring a team willing to take enormous risk to build something new. 

Fred Wilson recently posted about startup creation stories. And there are lots of lessons to be learn from these stories. 

But there are many, many more lessons - and better lessons - to be learned from startup failures.