Cody’s Pivot Playbook: How to Maintain Customer Focus When Your Original Solution Fails
When a global pandemic obliterates your business model, most founders would panic. But in a recent Category Visionaries episode, Cody CEO Christelle Rohaut shared how her team turned this existential threat into an opportunity for 10X growth by staying laser-focused on their core problem rather than their initial solution.
The Original Vision: From Urban Planning to Market Innovation
Cody’s original mission emerged from a simple observation about inefficient city design. As Christelle explains: “Here you have more like small commercially zoned downtown where all the offices are, and then you have very large residentially zoned neighborhoods where everybody lives.” This inefficient separation created massive commutes with downtowns packed during workdays while residential neighborhoods sat empty.
Their solution? Transform empty homes into daytime workspaces for remote workers. “We can bring workspaces closer to where people live instead of making them commute far, and that would reduce carbon emissions and boost local economies and revitalizes our neighborhoods,” Christelle shares.
When Reality Hits Your Business Model
Then COVID-19 hit. “When you operate a physical business, like physical locations, it was rough because shelter in place made us shut down all our locations for a little while,” Christelle recalls. Their original business model was effectively dead.
But rather than desperately trying to save their initial solution, they took a step back to examine the core problem they were solving. This led to a crucial insight that would guide their pivot: “We’ve always been about hybrid work, remote work, decentralized work, and more than ever, that was like the frontline topic for all companies and for the whole world discovered remote work.”
The Pivot Framework: Problem Over Solution
The key to Cody’s successful pivot was maintaining unwavering focus on the core problem while remaining flexible about solutions. As Christelle explains: “I think it’s just as a founder as a company, staying focused on solving a problem and not being too in love with a solution. I was very much in love with residential spaces and utilizing that as a workspace, but there was no product market fit there.”
Instead of forcing their original vision, they looked for new ways to solve the same fundamental problem of workspace accessibility. This led them to partner with commercial landlords facing high vacancy rates, creating a managed marketplace that connected companies seeking flexibility with underutilized office spaces.
Recognizing Market Power Shifts
The pivot worked because they recognized a fundamental shift in market dynamics. “The beauty of today is that demand got the power back,” Christelle notes. “If all the demand want a one year term, supply doesn’t have a choice… offering a five year lease is no longer in demand.”
This insight helped them position their new solution at the intersection of changing customer demands and traditional supplier constraints.
The Results: Growth Through Focus
The pivot proved transformative. Since repositioning the business in fall 2021, Cody has grown their customer base by 10X. But more importantly, they’ve remained true to their original mission of making workspaces more accessible and efficient.
The Framework for Successful Pivots
Cody’s experience offers a valuable framework for founders facing similar challenges:
- Focus on the problem, not your original solution
- Stay attuned to market shifts that create new opportunities
- Be willing to abandon beloved initial solutions that aren’t working
- Look for ways to solve the same problem through different means
- Maintain your core mission while pivoting your approach
As Christelle summarizes: “We’re still on the same mission of decentralizing access to workspaces and making having a space a lot easier than it is today.” Their story shows that successful pivots don’t require abandoning your mission – they require doubling down on the core problem you’re solving while remaining flexible about how you solve it.