Sam Brown (above) is the epitome of a great entrepreneur. Because when things go wrong, Sam pivots!
Sam (15) and his friend Arran (pictured below) were planning to launch their business, Frame It, at April’s Guildford Children’s Business Fair. But as COVID-19 took hold in the Far East, first his supplies dried up. Then, hit by the cancellation of April’s fair, Sam was forced to go back to the drawing board.
Pivoting describes the process where entrepreneurs – once they’ve realising their idea isn’t working – radically change their strategy in search of more successful opportunities.
There’s a ton of great examples of incredibly successful pivots; YouTube originally pivoted from a video dating site to the giant it is now; the founder of Shopify started by selling snowboards online. Read more about how famous brands have pivoted, here.
Sam provides the perfect example of a pivot. He thought hard about what was possible in lockdown. He couldn’t go anywhere, do anything or sell to anyone. He’d have to have a go at something from the comfort of his own bedroom… so why not start his own YouTube channel? Genius!
Sam’s now posted multiple videos. His channel’s a fascinating snapshot of how find an audience. Lightly themed around entrepreneurship and making money, Sam isn’t afraid to experiment in building followers, learning and testing out tips from other YouTubers in his quest to constantly improve his own content. We are particularly impressed with the shout out and interview with YouTuber, KenyonKen – check it out here.
Go Sam – way to pivot! Can’t wait to see what’s next…
If you want to here how often successful entrepreneurs pivot, just listen to pretty much any episode of CBFUK’s favourite podcast, How I Built This.
For more stories of resilience in the face of failure, read how CBF heroes Happy Hens launched and re-launched their business, here.
