Recovering From Failure

Turn product setbacks and stalled growth into strategic breakthroughs and pivots.

Help the user with recovering from failure using insights from 20 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.

How to Help

1. Diagnose the failure - Use frameworks like the Four Ps or root cause analysis to identify exactly why the product or feature isn't gaining traction.
2. Assess conviction - Determine if the team still believes in the problem and solution after facing real world challenges or if it is time to move on.
3. Identify the pivot path - Look for organic pull within existing features or technical foundations to find a more viable direction.
4. Execute with speed - Move decisively to abandon failing initiatives and reallocate resources toward high conviction opportunities.

Core Principles

Stay in the game to reinvent

Bret Taylor: "They gave me another shot to do a V2 of it and I got the impression it wasn't like my last shot, but I certainly was feeling a little dejected from going from a hot shot, new PM to a new thing. So, we spent a lot of time thinking about how can you make something that's just much more compelling and not just a digital version of the Yellow Pages and not just so similar to some of the other products out there."

Rebuilding a reputation after a high profile failure requires the resilience to stay active and the willingness to completely reinvent the product.

Pivot toward domain expertise

Dalton Caldwell: "Usually a successful pivot gets warmer instead of colder from what you're an expert at and somehow builds on what you learned on the prior idea. Right? And so in the case of Brex, it was they had worked on a FinTech company in Brazil when they were younger, and so I'm like, 'You need to work more on the thing all about and not the thing nothing about.'"