When Irembo spun out its payment feature, it initially used the same brand colors, causing confusion. A simple change to a new color (green) was the critical first step in establishing a separate identity. This visual differentiation helped both internal teams and external customers see it as a distinct product.

Don't rebrand for the sake of it. A successful rebrand should be a deliberate move to signal a fundamental shift in your business, such as an expansion, a new mission, or a deeper commitment to core values like sustainability. It's an external reflection of an internal change.

When pivoting from a product with existing revenue, avoid the binary choice of killing it or splitting focus. Blue Jay successfully transitioned by putting their V1 product into "maintenance mode"—servicing existing customers but halting all new feature development—and committing the entire team to building the V2 for a defined six-month period.

Instead of fearing failure, Ridge institutionalizes it by allocating a $1M annual budget specifically for testing new product expansions. This removes pressure from any single launch, encourages aggressive experimentation, and has led to eight-figure successes alongside predictable flops like watches.

Accel Events thrived by pivoting to a virtual events platform during COVID. However, this new reputation hurt them when the market returned to in-person events. They were no longer seen as a viable in-person solution, forcing another costly product and brand rebuild to recapture their original market.

Mailtrap's brand was built on the promise of *preventing* emails from reaching inboxes. When they launched an email *delivery* service, they faced a massive challenge: their new product's goal was the exact opposite of their original one. Overcoming this brand confusion and rebuilding user perception became a primary business obstacle.

To manage the psychological difficulty of abandoning a working product with paying customers, Fal's founders convinced themselves their pivot wasn't a drastic change but just a shift in workload. This mental reframing helped them overcome the inertia and social pressure associated with a major strategic change, allowing them to pursue the much larger opportunity in AI inference.

To avoid distracting from its core business, Bolt tests new ventures like scooters and food delivery using a standardized playbook. A small team of 5-10 people is given a modest budget and a six-month timeline to build an MVP and show traction. If successful, they get more funding; if not, the project is shut down.

Rather than making an abrupt turn, Sure managed its pivot from a B2C app to a B2B platform gradually. They kept the original mobile app running while they built and validated the new B2B distribution model, only sunsetting the app once the new strategy proved viable and began to ramp up.