List of startups/companies that had successful pivots

Company	Now	Early days	Reason for pivot	Source
WhatsApp	Messaging app	App that would show statuses for other people like "On the flight to Munich, send email instead of calling me."	Users started using it to ping each other with statuses like, “I woke up late,” or “I’m on my way.” At some point it sort of became instant messaging.	source
Youtube	Video-sharing platform	Dating website for single people to make videos introducing themselves and saying what they were looking	Despite offering to pay women $20 to upload videos of themselves to YouTube, nobody came forward. So they decided to remove the "dating" part and allow all types of videos.	source
Slack	Instant messaging platform	Browser-based massively multiplayer online game called Glitch.	"Glitch has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself." The next best idea they had was to productize and market an internal communications tool that they had built to run Glitch.	source
Instagram	Photo-sharing social network	A mobile app called Burbn that let you: check in to locations, make plans, earn points, post pictures, and much more.	They wanted to focus on being really good at one thing. So they basically cut everything in the Burbn app except for its photo, comment, and like capabilities	source
Twitter	Microblogging service	Podcasting platform called Odeo.	Apple released iTunes that took all the podcasting market. Odeo realized the danger, and they started holding official hackathons to search for new products; one of them became Twitter.	source
Shopify	eCommerce platform	Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment.	Dissatisfied with the existing e-commerce products on the market, Lütke, instead built his own.	source
Netflix	Streaming service	Online DVD rental store sent by mail.	Netflix had considered offering movies online, but there were speeds and bandwith problem in mid-2000. After discovering YouTube, and witnessing how popular streaming services, they introduced video on demand via internet.	source
Yelp	Places recommendation service	Email-based referral network to ask friends for place recommendation.	Users were not answering requests for referrals, but were using the "Real Reviews" feature, which allowed them to write reviews unsolicited.	source
Nintendo	Video game company	Playing card company.	Nintendo experimented in other areas of business like: taxi company, hotel chain, TV network, instant rice; but none of them were succesful. Then they tried to focus on video games.	source
Paypal	Online payment system	Mobile encryption service -> Payment between PDA -> Web payment	For the encryption service, they didn't want to be dependent on others to build application. For the PDA payment, not everyone had a PDA.	source
Flickr	Photo sharing community	Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called Neverending	They focused on a photo-sharing feature developed for Neverending. In the early days, no one knew how to store the pictures they took. Most photo sites were more about uploading your pictures in hope you would pay to have them printed.	source
Groupon	Online deal marketplace	The Point, a web platform based on the "tipping point" principle that would utilize social media to get people together to accomplish a goal.	The Point was intended to organize people around some sort of cause or goal. It gained only modest traction in Chicago until a group of users decided their cause would be saving money. They wanted to round up people to buy the same product in order to receive a group discount.	source
Nokia	Mobile phone and tech	Producing rubber	Invented a lot and diverse range of products	source
Play-Doh	Toys for kids	Wall cleaner	The market for wallpaper cleaning putty decreased substantially. They had seen a newspaper article about making art projects with the wallpaper cleaning putty, and the students enjoyed it.	source
Western Union	International money transfer	One of the largest telegram service company	Decline of telegraphy	source
Android	Operating system for mobile phone	Operating system for digital cameras	The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals	source
BioWare	Video game company	Medical simulation program	The founders relaxed by playing computer games and they realized that this was where their passion was. The medical field was satisfying and lucrative, but it was time for the group to move on.	source
Segment	Customer Data Platform	Classroom lecture tool	When the product was deployed in the classroom, all the students opened their laptop and went straight to Facebook instead of using the program.	source
ARM	Designing computer processors	Acorn Computers Ltd., producers of computer systems originally designed to run slot machines and other computers	They need powerful CPU. After approaching Intel for the 80286 core and being rebuffed, Acorn decided to develop their own processor.	source

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