Pivoting Guidance

5. If I’ve already invested heavily in the wrong product or strategy, will the program help me recover, or only support those starting from scratch?

The 1Mby1M program can help founders who have already invested heavily in the wrong product or strategy. In fact, this is one of the key situations the program is meant to address. The core philosophy is not just for those starting from scratch, but for anyone who needs to “fix” their business to make it sustainable.

Here’s how the program helps you recover and pivot:

• Direct and Candid Feedback: During the mentoring roundtables, the program’s founder, Sramana Mitra, is known for her direct, no-nonsense feedback.She will ask pointed questions to help you diagnose exactly where your strategy went wrong. This is crucial for founders who are emotionally attached to a failing idea. The goal is to move past wishful thinking and get to an honest assessment of the business.
• Guidance on Pivoting: The program’s methodology explicitly covers when and how to pivot. Instead of viewing a pivot as a failure, it’s seen as a necessary and strategic course correction. You’ll be guided to analyze why your initial idea failed, identify what, if anything, can be salvaged, and use the program’s curriculum to validate a new strategy.
• Saving Resources: The program’s curriculum emphasizes “bootstrapped, capital-efficient entrepreneurship.” This is a perfect framework for someone who has already wasted time and money. The program teaches you how to stop the bleeding, rethink your approach, and build your next iteration in a lean, data-driven way, using customer feedback and revenue to guide your next steps.
• Learning from Case Studies: The 1Mby1M curriculum includes a vast library of case studies of entrepreneurs who have faced similar challenges.You can learn from their experiences, understand their pivots, and apply those lessons to your own situation. This provides a clear roadmap for recovery.

In summary, the program is not just about building from scratch. It provides a structured, expert-led process for diagnosing problems, making tough decisions, and guiding you to a new, more viable path, even after significant investment in a failed product.