Nobody formally decided to kill the passenger business. It was stopped as a side effect. -- Late 2021. Vetifly finally had a working air mobility platform. 12 shared flights a day, 2 helicopters, 3-4 charters a week. A customer came to us asking if we could move gold on helicopters. Then another said they were moving yoghurt daily from Cotonou to Lagos (a 25-minute straight flight), via Paris as there was no direct cargo route. Other customers asked if we could bring their cargo from China.
We decided to explore cargo. But somewhere the exploration turned into a pivot because the opportunity was so large. -- I pushed for our platform to adapt to handle both passengers and cargo. Keep the business model that had gotten us the early investors. It would have taken us a little longer to start with cargo, to establish the same operator conditions we had tested for passenger movement. I finally agreed with rushing with a stop-gap model till we could expand the platform.
The stop-gap contracts helped us raise funds. Enough to wet lease a large cargo plane. -- A side-effect of operational priorities shifting (and funds coming in) was that we stopped taking passenger bookings. Devoted all personnel to cargo. Building a helipad, getting a new office, planning a warehouse. All-in on cargo.
Then the Russia-Ukraine war happened. Global cargo movement suddenly shifted to crisis mode. Our stop-gap contract customers backed out of starting year-long contracts. They now wanted the same pricing for quarterly contract. Wasn't very feasible for us.
A working passenger business would have kept us going, minimally. But we were all in on cargo. -- A pivot is rarely a single, conscious decision. Most often, it ends up being a series of shifting priorities over time. If the original strategy started from a place of 'we know what we're doing', customer feedback gets selectively heard. Yes, our customers were telling us about their cargo troubles. But they were also actively using our passenger model.
Pivoting when a business model isn't working is smart. Pivoting when an untested model looks bigger is a bet dressed up as a strategy.
What is your team quietly deprioritizing that your strategy can't afford to lose?
#Strategy #Startups #Pivot