How do you tell a million dollar investor that you’re pivoting your startup after four months?
’s Sebastian Gyr was faced with this conundrum in the winter of 2014 after founding BuddyHopp, a social media app that allowed friends and strangers to find and organize events together.
The idea for BuddyHopp was created on a kitchen table in Switzerland, Gyr’s native country. He worked with his LA-based cofounder Jonathan Ramos on the idea for six months before deciding to quit his job and relocate his wife and young son to Palo Alto.
The family lived out of Gyr’s uncle’s garage until the company received its first million from an unnamed German investor in the summer of 2014. Gyr and his family then moved south to Venice Beach where he and Ramos began to build BuddyHopp.
“I had developed a relationship with my investor for about four months before he put money in,” recalled Gyr. “After I had pitched, he invited me to his house for breakfast. We had a six hour breakfast and he asked me very difficult questions and for the next three months he would call in once or twice a week and grill me. At some point he said, ‘[Sebastian] you’ve got it, I’m going to invest in you and you’re going to bring this thing to the top.’”
The app had no technical cofounder as Ramos was a designer and Gyr led business development. Nonetheless, BuddyHopp was slowly developed until September 2014 when Gyr and his chief marketer, Florence Driessens, began to consider a different trajectory.
“The first part of a pivot is an emotional pivot,” explained Gyr. “At some point the cofounders realize ‘Oh shit, I think we’re heading in the wrong direction.’ The second step is understanding you need a new direction but you still need to find what that new direction is going to be. It’s not like you wake up one day and know exactly where you’re going to go. So basically over a period of about three to four months, Florence [Driessens] and I went out every day and interviewed hundreds of people. We walked the streets of Abbot Kinney and went to cafes to interview freelancers in order to to understand how we can help them to connect on a hyperlocal level to get things done. At some point in March or April tispr was born as a name and the identity started to shift.”
Over the next five months, the company pivoted, trimmed down its team and rebranded itself as tispr — a mobile services marketplace where freelancers can connect and collaborate on projects ranging from writing and photography to accounting and physical training.
Instead of reassuring his investor with false optimism, Gyr turned to him for advice as he began to notice the effects the pivot was having on team morale:
“He accompanied us through these very delicate stages when some of the team members were not optimal. Basically what he told us was, ‘You guys are Christopher Columbus, you’re on a boat and you’ve set out to find a prosperous land. You don’t know what storms or beast will come your way during this journey but it is entirely up to the sailors to make it through.’”
Drawing heavily from this ship metaphor, Gyr reduced the size of his team to what he calls his “pirate crew.” And nearly six months after the pivot, tispr has found success in its new niche as they prepare to close the final installment of their $5 million Series A.
After wading the tumultuous waters of early startup life, Gyr believes his pirate ship is finally sailing smoothly. The biggest improvement? Simplifying his crew’s approach. He now insists everyone’s job description should be given in one line.
“Everyone has these kind of utopical job descriptions which are actually the endpoint. And for me it’s how to make tispr a successful business. It’s the only goal I have.”
