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Chef Adrianne Calvo didn’t plan to become one of the most influential chefs in Miami or anywhere. In fact, her journey started by mistake.

“I was incorrectly placed in a culinary arts class in high school,” she tells Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef of Cali BBQ Media. “Total accident. But when Johnson & Wales came in to do a demo, I felt like they were speaking directly to me. That was my lightning strike.”

What followed was a full-on pivot. Calvo started entering culinary competitions to raise money for college. Her food began winning on taste, not trends. No smoke or foam, just flavor. One judge urged her to write a cookbook of her winning recipes. She was only 18.

“I didn’t even want to do it at first,” she says, laughing. “But then I was like, no, I am going to do this.” The result was Maximum Flavor, her first of many cookbooks.

Related: A Loyal Customer Asked Him to Cater One Event. Now, He Runs More Than 1,000 a Year.

That book ended up in the hands of a producer for The Montel Williams Show. One phone call (and three hang-ups because she thought it was a prank from a friend) later, she was flown to New York City as Williams’ youngest-ever cookbook author guest. What she didn’t know was that it would also be his final show. She cooked scallops live on-air, unaware that he hated them. He took three bites and stunned the room:

“For 45 years I’ve hated scallops,” Williams said at the time. “This girl made me love them.”

That moment catapulted Maximum Flavor sales and gave Calvo the capital to launch her first restaurant at just 22 years old.

Related: This ‘Chopped’ Champ Beat Cancer 6 Times, Lost Nearly 200 Pounds and Found Power in Presence

Love letters to a chef

Opening night wasn’t glamorous. “I hid under the bar sink,” she admits. “I had a full-on meltdown. But the only way out was through.”

Her first location was a 3,000 square foot storefront in a quiet neighborhood, far from the kind of place people expected to find a buzzworthy restaurant. “If you’re coming to the restaurant, you’re coming to eat there,” she recalls. “There was nothing around us.”

No liquor license, no built-in foot traffic, just a flood of people on opening night and a 22-year-old chef overwhelmed by the weight of it all. “I remember thinking, what have I done?” she says.

But she and her team got through the night. “It was a blur,” she adds. “I don’t remember that night at all, just little pieces of it.”

The restaurant’s growth came from long hours, great food and meaningful guest experiences. But social media gave her something more. It helped her connect beyond the four walls. Her manager, Mike, encouraged her to start a Facebook page.

Calvo began sharing nightly specials and behind-the-scenes photos. “One night, a server came to me and said, ‘A table wants this dish you posted today.’ That’s when I realized social media could expand the experience beyond the plate.”

What followed was a flood of handwritten notes from guests on the backs of receipts. Encouragement. Praise. Thanks.

“They knew I was back there 12 hours a day on the line,” she says. “Those messages were my fuel. I call them love letters to a chef. I’d post them [and] save them because they’re a testament to all the blood, sweat and tears.”

Today, Calvo has more than a million Instagram followers, an award-winning podcast and runs multiple concepts, including Cracked by Chef Adrianne, which is currently at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

But the foundation remains the same: Tell a story, stay authentic and cook like you mean it. “You don’t need to reinvent food,” Calvo says. “You just need to make something people will crave long after the plate is gone.”

Related: How a ‘Finance Guy’ and ‘Restaurant Guy’ Joined Forces to Invest in Over 55 Companies

About Restaurant Influencers

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From Tel Aviv to tech boardrooms, my entrepreneurial journey has taken me through building businesses, navigating painful failures, celebrating meaningful exits and eventually investing in other founders’ visions. I’m an Israeli immigrant who came to the U.S. with little more than ambition and a belief that hard work could move mountains. Over time, I’ve seen firsthand how startups are born from nothing but grit and vision — but as those companies grow, they begin to touch more than just market share. They influence culture. They inspire communities. And they bear the responsibility to give back.

In recent years, my focus has shifted from just building companies to helping others build theirs and, just as importantly, encouraging them to align their success with meaningful causes. After joining the Israeli-American Council (IAC) as a council member, I realized that beyond the business pitch decks and M&A spreadsheets lies something even more impactful: service. Through our initiatives supporting Jewish solidarity, educational programs and bridging relationships between American and Israeli entrepreneurs, I found that philanthropy isn’t just a “feel-good” endeavor — it’s a strategic advantage. It grounds founders, strengthens brand identity, builds community and invites purpose into what can sometimes feel like a grind.

So, here’s my call to fellow founders, startup CEOs and emerging entrepreneurs: Integrate charitable alignment into your DNA. Not for press. Not for optics. For impact.

Related: 5 Entrepreneurial Reasons to Embrace Philanthropy

Make-A-Wish Foundation

Mission: Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses, turning dreams into reality during their most difficult battles.

Startup life is full of “impossible” dreams — something Make-A-Wish embodies in a very human way. Supporting them isn’t just about giving; it’s about reminding your team what hope looks like. Tech company Atlassian has funded dozens of wishes through employee-led campaigns, showing how company culture can be both productive and profoundly kind.

Team Rubicon

Mission: Team Rubicon unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams.

Startups are built on agility — and Team Rubicon is a masterclass in organized action under pressure. They’re a phenomenal organization to support, especially for founders with veteran ties or a passion for community disaster response. Their recent deployment to Maui after wildfires made national headlines.

Operation Gratitude

Mission: Operation Gratitude delivers care packages and personalized letters to deployed troops, veterans, wounded heroes and first responders.

Startups often talk about grit and sacrifice, and Operation Gratitude honors the Americans who live those values every day. Supporting this organization provides tangible appreciation to service members and can unify teams around shared patriotic values. It’s especially meaningful for companies with veteran employees or founders, or those wanting to show support for public servants.

The Trevor Project

Mission: The Trevor Project provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth.

Today’s workforce values inclusion, and The Trevor Project is on the frontlines of emotional and mental health. Their work intersects with DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) priorities that many startups strive for. Salesforce has championed LGBTQ+ causes through The Trevor Project, showing how social alignment can reflect core brand values.

Israeli-American Council (IAC)

Mission: The IAC builds an engaged and united Israeli-American community that strengthens the Israeli and Jewish identity, the American Jewish community and the bond between the people of the United States and Israel.

Beyond my personal affiliation, IAC offers incredible opportunities for founders to connect with global networks, Jewish and Israeli-American business leaders, and to support education, cultural diplomacy and solidarity during global crises. When Israel faced economic and emotional turmoil during recent conflicts, IAC quickly mobilized both humanitarian aid and business support.

Related: 10 Philanthropic Organizations Entrepreneurs Should Consider Supporting

DonorsChoose

Mission: DonorsChoose empowers public school teachers by funding their classroom projects, from books to science kits.

Education is the ultimate upstream investment. Many of today’s innovators were inspired by great teachers — yet those teachers often lack basic resources. Supporting DonorsChoose lets entrepreneurs impact students directly, and startups can align product donations, campaigns or even team volunteering around local classrooms.

Feeding America

Mission: Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States, providing meals through a network of food banks.

No one innovates well on an empty stomach. Hunger is closer than many founders realize, especially in cities with both tech hubs and underserved populations. Recent partnerships with companies like Amazon and General Mills show how even operational efficiencies (like surplus distribution) can be used for social good.

Girls Who Code

Mission: To close the gender gap in tech by equipping young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st-century careers.

Founders often talk about the pipeline problem — Girls Who Code solves it. Their alumni now work at Google, Meta and hundreds of other startups. Supporting them isn’t just charitable; it’s a strategic investment in a more balanced, innovative future.

Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.)

Mission: O.U.R. works to rescue children from sex trafficking and exploitation and partners with local law enforcement around the world.

Modern slavery is real — and profitable. It’s time for ethical businesses to help end it. O.U.R. gives companies a direct way to engage in awareness, funding and rescue missions. With ongoing cases in Central America and Southeast Asia, their work is urgent and impactful.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Mission: St. Jude leads the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

St. Jude combines compassion with cutting-edge research — a formula every biotech or health-tech founder should admire. What sets them apart is that families never receive a bill. Startups can support them through percentage-of-revenue donations, corporate sponsorships or employee matching programs.

Startups are inherently optimistic. They are born from belief. But belief without action is hollow. These ten organizations aren’t just charity checkboxes. They’re powerful channels for meaning, connection and responsibility. When founders integrate giving into their companies, they don’t just enrich the world — they enrich their teams, their culture and themselves.

Related: The Business Of Giving Back: Five Reasons Why Philanthropy Should Be At The Core Of Your Corporate Strategy

As someone who has gone from bootstrap to boardroom, from failure to fortune and from founder to funder — I can tell you this: Success that stands alone feels empty. But when your company becomes a vehicle for change, everything you build starts to matter more.

So, the next time you pitch your business, ask yourself: What are you building it for?

Months after publicly stating its intention to shake up its corporate structure, OpenAI has reversed course and decided that its nonprofit arm will keep controlling its for-profit business.

According to an OpenAI blog post published Monday, the company’s board of directors decided that OpenAI will continue to rely on the oversight and control of its nonprofit division moving forward.

“OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit,” OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor wrote in the blog post. “Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit.”

The company’s for-profit LLC, which has lived under the nonprofit since 2019 and will continue doing so, will become a public benefit corporation (PBC). A PBC is a for-profit business that must consider the public good in addition to profit in its decisions. The nonprofit division of OpenAI will control and be the biggest shareholder in the PBC.

“Our mission remains the same,” Taylor noted. OpenAI’s mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

Related: Everyone Wants to Buy Google’s Chrome Browser — Including OpenAI, According to a Top ChatGPT Executive

In December, OpenAI publicly indicated in a blog post that it was thinking about making its for-profit section a PBC, but one that had complete control over OpenAI’s operations and business. The non-profit side would not oversee the for-profit, but would instead be in charge of charitable initiatives.

Taylor wrote on Monday that OpenAI chose to reverse course and have the nonprofit retain control over the for-profit business after talking to civic leaders and with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California.

More than 30 civic leaders, former OpenAI staffers, and Nobel laureates delivered letters to the offices of the attorneys general last month to ask that they stop OpenAI’s effort to break from its non-profit governance.

^{OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

OpenAI has recently been embroiled in a legal battle with Elon Musk, who helped co-found the company and left in early 2018 following a failed bid to take it over. Musk has since filed lawsuits against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of breaking OpenAI’s founding agreement and working to maximize profits for Microsoft instead of humanity as a whole. Microsoft has invested close to $14 billion in OpenAI.

Musk even led an unsolicited offer to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion in February, which Altman quickly shot down on X. As of press time, Musk had yet to comment.

Related: OpenAI Is Creating AI to Do ‘All the Things That Software Engineers Hate to Do’

OpenAI started as a nonprofit in 2015 and transitioned to a “capped profit” company in 2019, meaning that the company’s profits were limited to a certain amount, with excess profits given to the nonprofit parent organization. The for-profit arm raised $1 billion from Microsoft in 2019, alongside a $100 million initial fundraising round.

In November 2022, OpenAI launched its AI chatbot ChatGPT, which was used by 500 million global weekly users as of March, up from 400 million in February.

OpenAI closed a $40 billion funding round in March, the biggest private tech deal ever, which valued the company at $300 billion.

Shoemaker Skechers announced on Monday that it had agreed to be acquired by investment firm 3G Capital in a $9.4 billion deal that would take the company private after nearly three decades as a public entity. It’s the biggest-ever deal in the footwear industry and was unanimously approved by the Skechers board of directors.

The transaction will close in the third quarter of this year and be funded by a combination of cash from 3G Capital as well as debt financing from JPMorgan Chase Bank, per Bloomberg. 3G Capital has agreed to pay $63 per share, a 30% premium to Skechers’ average stock price.

After the deal closes, Skechers will no longer be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company will still be led by Founder, Chairman, and CEO Robert Greenberg and its current leadership team, including COO David Weinberg.

“With a proven track record, Skechers is entering its next chapter in partnership with the global investment firm 3G Capital,” Greenberg stated in a press release. “Given their remarkable history of facilitating the success of some of the most iconic global consumer businesses, we believe this partnership will support our talented team as they execute their expertise to meet the needs of our consumers and customers while enabling the Company’s long-term growth.”

^{Skechers founders Robert Greenberg (left) and son Michael Greenberg (right) in a Skechers display room. Photo by Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images}

Skechers is one of many footwear companies that signed a letter to President Donald Trump last week asking for a reprieve from reciprocal tariffs, which are as high as 145% for imports from China and at a baseline of 10% for all countries.

Related: The Duty-Free Loophole on Cheap Goods From China Closes Friday. Here’s How It Will Affect Your Wallet.

“As leading U.S. footwear businesses, manufacturers, and retailers, we urge you to exempt footwear from the reciprocal tariffs,” the letter, which was signed by Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, and Puma, reads. It goes on to state that the tariffs could cause “substantial cost increases” and make footwear inventory run low in the U.S.

Skechers is the third-largest footwear company in the U.S. after Nike and Deckers, with a market capitalization of $9.25 billion at the time of writing. The shoemaker was founded in 1992 and went public in 1999 at an initial public offering price of $11 per share.

Skechers’ most recent earnings report, released last month, shows that sales reached a record-high $2.41 billion during the first quarter of the year ending March 31, up 7.1% year-over-year. Wholesale sales increased by 7.8% during the quarter.

The company stated in the report that the strong quarterly sales reflected “strong global demand.” International sales outside the U.S. contributed to 65% of Skechers’ business.

Related: Analysts Like The Fit Of Skechers USA

Meanwhile, 3G Capital has made a name for itself with its emphasis on cost-cutting and restructuring since it was founded in 2004. The firm focuses on zero-based budgeting, or on having executives begin at zero for their budget for every new quarter instead of starting with the expenses of the previous quarter.

3G Capital previously agreed to buy a majority stake in blinds and shutters maker Hunter Douglas NV for $7.1 billion in 2021. The firm also orchestrated the 2015 merger between Kraft Foods Group and The H.J. Heinz Company with the help of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Shares of Skechers were up over 24% at the time of writing.

I understand that you might be more focused on developing your career and considering how others perceive your success and growth. That’s natural — the world we live in often equates validation with progress. But I’d like to take a moment to share a bit of my journey with you.

For me, life has been more about following my inner guidance rather than worrying about others’ opinions. It’s really about finding happiness in your own choices and letting go of the “what ifs.” Remember to trust your own instincts and chase what feels right for you. Your inner compass is what truly matters.

You may ask, Who is this guy with a weird Russian name who is telling me how to live my life? Hah, I’m not Russian at all, but actually Bulgarian — a country above Greece.

I have always been kind of the oddball, different from others in the sense of always looking for more, exploring the world to find my own unique meaning of life, trying different types of careers and jobs in search of myself, and somehow seeking acceptance from the people around me.

Related: I Quit My Corporate Role to Work a ‘Lazy Girl Job’ Instead — Here’s How This Career Change Helped Me Earn 10 Times More

You have the power to define what matters most.

Ever since an early age, I felt misunderstood for my actions and felt the pressure of other people trying to box me in and put restrictions on me. I did not know it back then, but everything could have been eased up by communication — and overcommunication — about your goals, thoughts and planned actions. I’ve lived and achieved some things important to others, and I am here to share the biggest idea of all: you have the power to define what matters most.

I had a normal life in a small town in Bulgaria, next to the Romanian border. I was 14–15 when I watched The Beach, and I was amazed by the natural beauty of this world. When I found out that this movie was set in Thailand, I decided I would go there someday. And it happened — really soon after.

My next-door neighbor went to Bangkok in a boarding house with a scholarship set up by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and the then-called Regent’s School. I was set on leaving — quitting my then life, leaving my parents — for my then-called idea of freedom and adventure. So, I took the proper math and English exams and applied to go there, with the support of my parents, of course.

I was 16, leaving my comfortable but boring, repetitive life for a Thai adventure. I am telling you this to show you that I’m not all talk — but that I act on my ideas and dreams.

I immersed myself in everything Thai — international students, and the open-mindedness of the whole Thai experience. It was one of the best decisions in my life. I urge everyone to think about sending your kid, if they want, to a boarding house on the other side of the world.

Fast-forward: I moved to the UK to study Economics at the University of Hull, graduated, and did a three-month internship at the European Parliament. And that’s where my entrepreneurship urges started. There, the spark started — being kind of struck by the slow pace of democratic decisions at the European Parliament.

Do not get me wrong; I am all for democracy, and there is nothing better.

However, I needed to be in a more fast-paced environment — at the start of business processes. To push a project into the light, so to speak. I got an idea for a phone application, and based on my scared mindset at 22 years old, I decided to learn programming to understand my potential co-founder’s tasks and to have an overview of the software development process.

It was kind of daunting for me, as I thought it was a smart person’s career — but with perseverance, everything can be achieved. Fast-forward a bit of time, around a year and a half, and I graduated from an intense software engineering program in Bulgaria — Telerik Academy. I jumped at the opportunity to start working as a .NET application developer for the Microsoft platform.

Do you recall when an attempt was made to develop an alternative to iOS and Android? Well, it didn’t quite take off. Honestly, it’s not my cup of tea either. The environment didn’t feel right. Project managers tend to focus on overseeing every aspect of their work while showing little concern for the development team’s well-being. Their main goal seems to be pushing for more output and the rapid release of new projects and features.

And even though managers and colleagues at the company told me I was making the biggest mistake in my life by leaving the company, internally I knew I would be all right.

Externally, from everyone’s perception of your trajectory, career choices and everything that entails, it looked like I was walking away from success. But I was not happy with staying the course. I did not want to be in the place of the senior developers at the company a few years into the future.

So, did I make the biggest career mistake in my life? I do not think so. It does not feel like a mistake or a failure on my end.

After my software engineering period, I jumped into the then-biggest startup community in Bulgaria — Start It Smart and their pre-accelerator program — with the app idea and a developer co-founder. There, I learned everything about the go-to-market strategy for a startup, pitching, looking for investors and all aspects of business and product development. It was energizing. But that is not where the “success” started coming to life. It was another “failure” — in the eyes of everyone and, at the time, even myself.

Whilst I was in the aftermath of it all, I kept the name of the startup and all the websites and decided to create an array of car apps for all brands, just for the fun of it. I think I spent a month overall on all of them, added ads and pushed them to both the Android and iOS Stores. And I left them. Little did I know — a couple of months later, I’d have more than one million downloads of all the apps combined, achieving my first taste of “passive income.”

I had a new idea after the car apps. And that was learning e-commerce and white-label product creation. I started selling products on Amazon US with my own branding. The first signs of winning, whilst still being involved with marketing for the startup organization Start It Smart. From zero to six figures from Fulfilled by Amazon. A nonlinear path to “success,” but a personally fulfilling one.

There is still more to my story — of trial and error, traveling and living in multiple countries, exploring and finding myself, chasing my idea of success, happiness and freedom. But that is not why I am writing this for you. I am showing you, through my story and past actions, that there is more to life than the outside — even the social perception of success and all the known career paths.

Related: How to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable as an Entrepreneur

Be different

The moral of the story: your intuition and your heart know better than the overanalysis and overcomplication of the “best scenarios” your brain comes up with. Go and be different. Be yourself. As tired and cheesy as it sounds, it is the truth. Take that leap of faith and learn from it. You will be better for it.

Consider this a letter to my 22-year-old self — a call to be even bolder, to go for it without hesitation.

I believe in you. Live life through trial and error — or like the scientific process: set a goal, try and test it, learn from it, optimize your actions and plan for the next iteration. It never ends, but that is what life is — to experience it all and learn, whilst enjoying every single moment, from the struggles and pains to the happiest you will be after those leaps of faith into the unknown.

Be yourself. We do not need more copies or people following a blueprint of the “best life” of somebody else. You know what you want. Go chase that idea, be the change, be different and trust that you’re not alone.

I am the same. I am here with you. And there are many of us around the world — entrepreneurs working in silos, caring not about external accolades, but about understanding life and chasing the grand ideas we want to see in the world.

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Successful entrepreneurs often share similar qualities — they’re driven, resourceful and ready to wear multiple hats to turn their vision into a reality. In the early stages of building a business, being a jack-of-all-trades isn’t just an advantage; it’s a necessity.

Given the nature of the job, it can be challenging for entrepreneurs to learn how to delegate effectively as a company grows — but it’s one of the most important skills to master for scaling a business and sustaining long-term success. The ability to recognize when to seek help, which tasks to delegate and how to lean on the expertise of others is what separates thriving businesses from those stuck in survival mode.

For me, the delegation lesson came early on in my entrepreneurial journey when I found my startup at a critical crossroads. In the beginning, I was operating as a one-man show, offering my software for free while personally handling support inquiries from our 500 users when I wasn’t at my full-time job. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t sustainable to continue managing this on my own, and I was faced with the choice of either eliminating support completely or finding a way to share the workload.

I decided to hire my very first employee to manage the increasing volume of support requests so I could focus on further expanding our user base and building a sustainable business model. By delegating support, my business was able to scale significantly without sacrificing the high-quality customer service that continues to define our brand today.

Related: 5 Reasons Why Delegation is a Must for Entrepreneurs

Breaking the “it’s easier to do it myself” mindset

If you don’t learn to delegate, your business growth will always be limited by your own capacity and capabilities. Handling everything on your own may feel efficient in the moment, but in reality, it restricts your potential as a leader and as a business. You only know what you know, and there are only so many hours in the day. Imagine what you and your business could be capable of if you had the right support from the right experts.

A solo mentality often leads to burnout, missed opportunities and stagnation. Shifting toward a leadership mindset doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of control — it’s about maximizing your impact. By trusting and empowering others, you’ll free up valuable time to focus on strategy, innovation and the big picture, ultimately driving greater success.

Start small and start now

If delegating isn’t your strong suit, the most effective way to build the habit is to start small and start now. Pick a task from your list — no matter how small or important — and delegate it to someone else on your team. Then move on to the next task and the next. The more you delegate, the more you’ll lighten your workload while building confidence in your team and their abilities. Over time, delegating will come more naturally, and you will encourage those around you to step up and excel.

Progress over perfection

In the beginning, tasks may not be done exactly as you would do them yourself — and that’s okay. Focus on progress over perfection. Effective delegation will be a learning process for both you and your team, requiring some patience, communication and trust. Instead of micromanaging or taking tasks back at the first sign of imperfection, try to embrace these moments as teaching and growth opportunities.

Building a stronger, more capable team

Delegation is a powerful tool to help your team grow. By entrusting your team with meaningful tasks and encouraging problem-solving and accountability, you’re creating a culture where employees can develop new skills and build confidence in their abilities. When your team feels empowered to solve problems and make decisions, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership and pride in their work. This sense of responsibility fuels engagement, motivation and investment in the success of the business.

Over time, delegation will only strengthen your team to become more self-sufficient and capable. As they take on more responsibility and grow in their roles, your business becomes more resilient with a stronger foundation. This growth enables you to scale your business efficiently without sacrificing the quality that is critical for long-term success.

Related: How to Delegate Effectively and Unlock Your Business’s Full Potential

Practical steps to delegate effectively

1. Choose what to delegate: Reflect on your workload and identify the tasks that truly require your direct involvement and those that don’t. Time to be honest about your strengths and weaknesses — does someone else on your team have the expertise to handle certain tasks more efficiently? Consider the time-consuming or repetitive tasks you could delegate to free up your time for higher-priority work.
2. Pick the right person: Be intentional about assigning the right tasks to the right individuals based on their skills and experience. Think about those who are capable, eager to learn and show the most growth potential.
3. Set clear expectations: Clearly define the scope of the task at hand, outlining key deadlines, objectives and your desired end result to set your team up for success. Provide any necessary resources or background context, and be available to answer questions or offer support along the way.
4. Support without controlling: Trust is the key to effective delegation — which is why it can be such a tough skill to master. Resist the urge to micromanage or demand perfection. Give your employees room and autonomy to complete the task in their own way while you remain accessible for guidance and support if needed.
5. Follow up and offer feedback: Schedule deadlines or check-ins to review progress and provide constructive feedback. Prioritize recognizing successes as highly as addressing any challenges.

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Pivoting can be the difference between a business’s life and death. Those that didn’t make it have sad epitaphs: Kodak: “Clung to film after digital photos became king.” Blockbuster: “Ignored streaming while Netflix rewrote the script.” Nokia: “Connected people, but lost out on smartphones.”

Changing course mid-journey can be painful, but as the above examples show, the alternative is worse. Think of a ship whose captain sees a major storm brewing on the horizon. Sure, the route has already been carefully plotted. But to continue on without accounting for new conditions would obviously be foolish.

When to pivot and how are questions that every entrepreneur has to face. Here’s how to do it.

Related: Pivoting My Startup Saved It From Failing — Here’s How It Can Help Yours, Too

To pivot or not to pivot

Pivoting is sometimes necessary, but you also don’t want to overdo it. A study from Duet Partners shows that startups that pivot once or twice have 3.6 times better user growth and are more than 50 percent less likely to scale prematurely than startups that either pivot not at all or more than two times.

This data shows that how you approach your pivot is crucial. As Harvard Business Review notes, the risks of getting it wrong can be substantial, including but not limited to wasting time and resources or sending your team in an unproductive direction.

Before making a pivot, ask yourself your reasons for doing it. Are you bending to outside pressure? Is there too much competition? Did a new opportunity arise?

These can be reasons to pivot, but not always. When Google stepped into the online forms ring, I was really concerned — how could my then-fledgling company, Jotform, compete with one of the most powerful tech behemoths out there? I’d be lying if I said changing direction didn’t cross my mind, and the idea of escaping to some uncharted territory where bigger, more formidable software companies had yet to tread was appealing.

But I stuck with it, and I am so glad I did. We not only survived Google’s entry into the market, we flourished. That’s because we do forms really well. When you find an idea that works, don’t dump it out of fear. Assess what makes your product unique, execute it brilliantly and focus on the data — not the competition.

Follow the market

Pivoting is not the same thing as chasing an of-the-moment flight of fancy. There’s an easy way to tell the difference, and that’s by asking yourself if your switch-up is in the service of your customers or for your own ego.

A lot of entrepreneurs hope their product is going to disrupt an entire industry, a la Amazon or Google. I don’t advise going down that road, but there is a sort of Goldilocks ratio when it comes to finding the right market. A small market means you don’t have any big competitors, and your business can expand along with the market—as long as that actually happens. If a market is too small, you won’t have any growth. In that case, you’ll need to change your product—in other words, pivot—to serve a larger market.

To keep up with what customers want, act like an anthropologist. The pandemic saw plenty of examples of businesses that anticipated that people’s needs would change and worked to engage with customers accordingly — examples include adding live-chat options to websites or including feedback forms at the ends of newsletters to effectively gather feedback. Figure out where the market is, what customers actually want, and go from there.

Related: If You Don’t Learn How to Pivot Your Business, You’ll Watch It Perish — Here’s What a Successful Pivot Looks Like.

Consider AI

The generative AI boom is well underway, and leaders need to think about how to integrate it into their services. But anyone who remembers the dawn of the dotcom era and its many busts (Pets.com is a perfect example) understands the importance of treading carefully.

In his new book, Pivot or Die: How Leaders Thrive When Everything Changes, author Gary Shapiro argues that leaders who fail to act on AI are at risk of near-instant obsolescence. And while genAI itself may be new, there are still lessons from history that can be carried forward. Shapiro suggests that companies use their core strengths as a starting point, and look for opportunities that can be executed in both the short-term and the long-term.

“I think this era in history will go down as never has there been such a radical transformation in technology and innovation and opportunity for people to do amazing things,” he says. “[Going forward] requires a lot of thought, input … figuring out where do we want to go? Where do we want to bet, and how much do we want to bet?”

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for determining when to pivot or in what direction. But as the world enters a new technological era, full of promise and peril, leaders should be thinking deeply about how well-suited they are to make bold moves and understand their reasons for doing so.

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