To Grow, These Founders Had to Kill Parts of Their Companies They'd Believed Were Essential Sometimes, when you kill off your sacred cows, you discover whole new fields of opportunity.

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.

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1. When something isn't working.

Rachel Johnson founded ah.mi, a virtual club for healthy living, and believed that content was key to her brand. But members weren't opening the emails with recipes and tips she sent multiple times a week. Then she noticed a hum of organic activity on ah.mi's Slack channel, so she decided to invest her energy there instead. Not only has that channel become a vehicle for growth and retention, she says, but "I took a step back and realized most of our members are working women who get inundated with emails." Now that she's focused on one a week, "our open rate has jumped."

2. When you have a different problem.

In 2018, Cliff Kennedy, CEO of the ice pop franchise Frios, was intent on a rebrand. But after a "listening tour" of the 25 stores, he learned that franchisees needed communication, not a new aesthetic. So the company set up a text platform for them to connect with corporate leadership — which meant that everyone was able to quickly coordinate and pivot when the pandemic hit and store sales declined. At Kennedy's suggestion, franchisees started selling their ice pops out of tie-dye–themed vans, which, as it turned out, cost less to operate and reached a wider audience than the stores ever did. Now Frios sells mobile-van franchises.

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3. When you've ignored a customer base.

Matt Doll, founder of American Fire Glass, thought he had to remain a B2B business. Even though he was itching to sell his firepit glass direct to consumer, he assumed that his wholesale customers would resent him for competing with their sales. But in 2018, the close of a struggling side brand gave him the push to launch DTC. Not only were his wholesale customers supportive, but his consumer marketing ended up driving new business: Customers asked wholesalers to stock his products, and Doll was now able to prove that they sold well at full price. As a result, the company grew by 80%, and at the end of 2021, DTC made up 50% of his profits. "Our market share is growing at the fastest rate we have ever seen," he says.

4. When you confuse packaging and branding.

In 2019, the wellness-beverage company Sunwink launched a line of sparkling tonics in glass bottles coated in cobalt blue paint. This drew consumers' attention and made the brand a hit at Whole Foods, but it led to explosions in its packing facility. Cofounders Eliza Ganesh and Jordan Schenck were loath to touch their main differentiator, but they did some testing and discovered that customers were not actually attached to the paint. Instead, they just loved the brand's blue design. The company ditched the paint, kept the color, expanded into new categories and retailers, and grew nearly 500% from 2020 to 2021. "You have to protect yourself against getting attached to one thing you thought was going to work," Schenck says.

In the cases above, a leader started with an experiment — and then leaned into the results. That's the way to go, Hartman says: "When we talk about learning you were wrong, the emphasis is on learning, not on wrong. Now you have the information you need to do something that is more right."

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