{"id":42743,"date":"2023-10-20T15:23:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-this-startup-knew-it-was-time-to-pivot-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:23:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:27","slug":"how-this-startup-knew-it-was-time-to-pivot-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-this-startup-knew-it-was-time-to-pivot-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How this startup knew it was time to pivot – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Startups need to stop being afraid to pivot and constantly track its users and market to know when it\u2019s time to change, Booodl co-founder George Freney says.<\/p>\n

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Beginning its life as a social media platform of sorts, connecting people looking for certain products, the startup has now re-launched as a tool to help users find nearby physical stores selling items on their wish-list.<\/p>\n

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Deciding it was time to pivot was easy because Booodl was just following the customers\u2019 wants, Freney tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have to listen to your users and observe the market,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have to always be looking at the traction you\u2019re getting with the customers and testing to make sure you\u2019ve found something that has product-market fit.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re suspicious you\u2019re not getting there you have to be aware of that, listen to the feedback and then push things in a new direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Embracing change<\/b><\/p>\n

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For Booodl, this was a matter of moving from an over-saturated market to one that was less serviced.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe saw a real opportunity around this physical, local shopping. It\u2019s a blue ocean and there are fewer players in it than social commerce,\u201d Freney says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe identified that social media and products wasn\u2019t really an interesting space, but we saw there was a real opportunity in helping people find stores selling things they wanted.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEvery man and his dog is playing with social media but there are very few companies helping you find a physical shop and reminding them about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe followed the data and the users, so in some ways it was an easy decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pivots shouldn\u2019t be seen as a bad thing for a startup and more as a natural progression, Freney says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA lot of startups do go through pivots, and it\u2019s very likely that the problem you set out to solve highlights a better problem to solve, and it\u2019s best to go in that direction,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s important that still sits within the overall area of passion and purpose you have. So long as you\u2019re pivoting towards a problem you and your team are really passionate about solving and you\u2019re committing to the cause.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult if it doesn\u2019t resonate with those trying to solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An online offering for the offline world<\/b><\/p>\n

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The revamped Booodl launched last week with the backing of $5 million investment in the previous venture from James Packer, Erica Baxter, Square Peg Capital and Matthew Grounds.<\/p>\n

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After running a pilot program in Sydney, the platform now has more than 15,000 signed up to its networks offering over 1 million products.<\/p>\n

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Through Booodl, users can search for a type of product or something specific, and are then notified when a nearby physical store has it in stock.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt makes that process much easier and the interaction more seamless,\u201d Freney says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPhysical stores haven\u2019t been as convenient as online – it\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s in-store and what the store around the corner from you has.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe saw this opportunity where no-one was connecting that interest, so we started experimenting with that capability.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCurrent solutions don\u2019t make it easy – Google makes it very easy to find online stores but that\u2019s not necessarily the best and most convenient option to find a product they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Booodl operates with a freemium model for the partnering stores, which will be charged a monthly fee in exchange for the foot traffic and visibility provided by the platform.<\/p>\n

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With renewed confidence and passion following the \u201csignificant\u201d pivot, Freney says the startup will soon be looking to expand its new and improved offering overseas next year.<\/p>\n

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Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Startups need to stop being afraid to pivot and constantly track its users and market to know when it\u2019s time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}