Pivots Are Expensive
The romanticism: "we pivoted and found product-market fit!" The reality: a pivot costs 3-6 months of engineering time ($200-500K), causes 20-30% team attrition, requires rebuilding 40-70% of the codebase, and resets your quality/reliability clock.
How to pivot cheaper: build modular architecture from day 1, validate assumptions with no-code/low-code before engineering, keep the core platform and pivot the product layer, and over-communicate the "why" to retain the team.