Before you pivot, write down the evidence that the current path is failing and the evidence that the new one is real, then put both next to the cost of switching. Paste the pivot proposal, the metrics behind the decline, the evidence from the new market or product, the runway effect, the plan for current customers and teams, and the measures you will use in the first 90 days into one request. Instruct Pingpong to question each part as a skeptical director would and to review your written answers in a second round. Ask it to separate problems you caused from problems in the market, to judge how much of the new evidence would survive outside your own network, and to name the signal that would make you reverse.
This page is for chief executives and directors weighing a change to the core product, the target customer, or the business model. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
The questions a board will ask
Is the current path failing, or did we break something?
Churn, slowing growth, and long payback can come from the market. They can also come from a bad release, a pricing mistake, or a sales team change. A pivot that fixes a self-inflicted problem by leaving the market is an expensive repair.
How real is the new path?
Paid contracts at full price from customers with no tie to the company count for more than pilots, letters of intent, or warm introductions from investors.
What does switching cost?
New hires, new compliance work, slower revenue while the new motion ramps, and faster decline in the old business if attention leaves it. The runway figure should include all of it.
What stops?
A pivot plan that keeps every current commitment usually funds neither path properly. Name what the company will stop building, selling, or supporting, and who tells the affected customers.
What would make us reverse?
Set the 90-day measures and the level at which you would stop before the announcement.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. A 120-person restaurant software company sells an ordering add-on to independent restaurants. The chief executive proposes shifting to inventory software for multi-location restaurant groups, a different customer and a longer sales cycle.
The proposal cites monthly churn of 3.5% among independents, falling net revenue retention, and three paid pilots with restaurant groups. The chief executive pastes the proposal, churn by customer group, pilot contracts, pipeline, runway model, and engineering plan.
A useful pass finds that the churn rise is concentrated among customers using a payments integration released last year, which has a long list of open defects. Fixing it might restore a large part of retention. Two of the three pilots came through a director's network, and all three are priced at a deep discount. Multi-location groups in the pipeline show sales cycles of six to nine months, while the plan expects conversion within two quarters.
The cost side is larger than the proposal shows. Enterprise sales hires and a security certification raise monthly burn by about 30%. Independents still provide 80% of revenue, and the plan moves most engineers off their product. Runway falls from 20 months to about 13. The plan says the current product will be maintained but assigns nobody to it, and it sets no reversal measure.
The chief executive revises. The payments integration gets fixed first, and churn is tracked for 60 days alongside the new work. The current product moves into maintenance with a named 12-person team, and customers are told plainly that new features will slow. The new path has three 90-day measures: two new contracts at full price from groups with no tie to the board, a pilot-to-contract conversion rate, and an average deal size. If the company misses the first measure by day 90, it returns to a staged plan. The board reviews the numbers at day 90.
A request you can copy
Below are our pivot proposal, the metrics behind the decline of our current business, the evidence for the new direction, our runway model, our plan for current customers and teams, and our proposed 90-day measures. Ask the questions a skeptical director would: is the current path failing or did we cause the problem, how much of the new evidence is independent and at full price, what switching really costs, what we will stop, and what would make us reverse. Stop there so we can answer in writing, then review our answers.
If the change is mainly about structure and reporting lines, see review a reorg proposal before you commit to it.
How Pingpong runs the review
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't review
A model does not know what your customers say in person, how your team will respond to the change, or how long investors will wait for results. You and the board own the decision.
When the pivot goes to a board vote, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.