I have been watching lots of Y combinator tutorials. There are a couple that discusses how important the starting ideas are. But I got some conflicting information.
One of them is by Jared Friedman (https://youtu.be/Th8JoIan4dg?si=dICXL5OIGPSTtYni). He claims that starting idea is not as important. You will gradually pivot to an amazing idea if you choose the right idea space. It is similar to what I have been hearing that great execution and team are everything
The other one of them is given by Sam Altman (https://youtu.be/egJeFaIXZLo?si=BUWflkxXt6a3NqZh). He claims that idea is extremely important. He has not seen pivoting to success.
I am confused. What do yall think. I mean I do hear stories where pivoting leads to success. Sam is very talented entrepreneur. Maybe I misunderstood him?
Appreciate any opinions!
You’ll often encounter conflicting information. That’s just par for course. There context to this that needs to also be taken into account
For example if the idea is deeply rooted in a domain that requires high expertise and is still fundamentally new, you might typically find that the founders have spent years studying this field before even starting a startup, eg lots in biotech and AI
On the other hand you might find a lot of “applied” ideas such as the kind that are “the X forY” ( eg Uber for gym instructors) - you might find they aren’t very “deep” and so there’s more competition, but also the idea may be less refined so then we’d expect more pivots
Ultimately one shouldn’t think of pivots as something you should do, but rather a byproduct of deeper understanding of what the customer needs, you’re not a ballerina, the intent isn’t to pivot your way to success, but rather to accept that in order to success some pivoting may be required
Regardless I think we can all agree the buck stops with execution. Ultimately whether you pivot or not, if you don’t execute it doesn’t matter