Pivot or persevere? Five smart reasons to refocus your business

NAIROBI, KENYA: The business environment changes almost constantly, which means companies have to be flexible enough to change direction when called upon to.

This process is called pivoting, and it enables a company to withstand challenges in its industry, as well as take advantage of new trends.

Several large companies have made names for themselves as a result of successful pivoting. Twitter, for example, started out as a podcast company named Odeo, while Nokia, once the largest smartphone manufacturer, was originally a paper mill.

One of the most crucial issues a business owner will face is knowing when to stay the course and when to shift strategy.

Adams Tuva is the founder of Buy Domain Kenya, and he decided to shift focus from offering corporate website packages to selling personal websites. He spoke to Hustle on the advantages of pivoting.

1. To handle the competition

Buy Domain Kenya was started six years ago. Our core business was providing website domains to companies, but last year, I decided that I wanted to branch out.

This was mainly because initially, we were reaching out to one company at a time. Most of them already had domains and there was nothing new we were showing them. We were selling 40 to 50 domains a month, which wasn’t good for us as this business is driven by volumes. I wanted the numbers, so I chose to focus on personal websites.

We have been doing the personal sites for six months now, but the impact has been huge. What we are offering is a unique product of good quality. Even if competition were to come along, I believe that we would be able to handle it because of the uniqueness of our product.

Look at Apple – despite there being so many other phone companies, people still line up to buy Apple phones because of the superior quality.

2. To keep up with changing trends

When I looked around, I saw that international brands were handling up to five million domains. Those are giants and that’s where I wanted to be.

I had to rethink Buy Domain Kenya’s strategy and figure out what would move people to buy my product. That’s when I landed on the idea of personal domains – with the .me.ke address. They were available, but nobody was using them.

Before we started this line of business, there were less than 100 .me.ke domains in the whole country. Now we are growing into the thousands.

What we’re currently offering is the second design that we came up with. The first one was a concept that I launched about a year ago, but people weren’t very receptive to it. The design wasn’t up to standard, so I talked to people, found out what they wanted and came up with a new concept design that is selling very well.

3. To create opportunities for new revenue streams

I’m now being approached by people, including company CEOs, to develop personal sites for them. This is the new-generation business card and people are seeing the value of the product that we’re making.

In the next few years, I predict that everyone will have a personal site because not only is it more professional, but you also get to put whatever you want there.

Musicians can use their sites to highlight their music, politicians can use them to showcase the work that they’ve been doing and graduating students can load their CVs for interested employers to take a look at. The USIU Alumni Association recently asked us to provide .me.ke domains for all their granduands – it was their graduation gift to them.

Our charges range from Sh990 for domain registration to Sh70,000 for website development.

4. To expand the business

My target is to have 15 million domains by August 2018, and I believe that with this new direction the company has taken, I will hit my target.

This is a programme that can be rolled out all over Africa. We have clients asking for personal domains for the Nigerian market and in the coming year, we are looking to set up in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The initial challenge was in getting people to understand what personal websites was all about, but I sent out lots of animated videos explaining the product and the traction has been growing. I have developed three other websites to add value to our initial product.

For every single category of sites we offer, we have networking clubs for the members, while students who have signed up get mentorship panels.

Club members are also offered opportunities to invest in real estate projects and there is a job portal where those looking for jobs are listed as recommended candidates.

For those in business, there is an African directory where their businesses are listed. This means that once you have a .me.ke site, you’re also immediately listed in five different sites and your SEO (search engine optimisation) skyrockets.

5. To become more dynamic

By being able to change direction quickly and being open to industry changes, we’re now offering the second-level .ke domain that has recently been launched in Kenya.

This is a big deal. People have been fighting for the last 10 years to get the second-level .ke domain released to Kenya by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

For the first three months after the release, IANA restricts domain registration to trademarked companies only. After this period, registration is then opened for general availability.

All trademarked companies in the country, therefore, need to secure .ke domains (not the co.ke, or.ke or ac.ke domains that they’ve been using) so that they can own all their possible domain names. This is another product we’re currently pushing.