When Letting Go Lets You Grow

These founders killed off their sacred cows and discovered whole new fields of opportunity.

- By Margot Boyer-Dry

Do you know what makes your company successful? You may think you do. Perhaps it's a certain feature, strategy, or signature ingredient. But what if you're wrong? Sometimes, letting go of what seems important becomes the very thing that drives your growth.

The process starts by listening, says Matt Hartman, partner at the seed-stage venture capital fund Betaworks Ventures. Take the opportunity to learn why you're hearing 'no' from a customer, he says. You might learn, for example, that the problem you're solving isn't big enough for people to pay for. That discovery can be followed up with a question like: If this isn't an important near-term issue, what are the top two or three problems on your mind today?”

Here are four examples that show just how transformative this change can be.

1/ When something isn't working.