The Pivot

On Monday, Marcus’s company made coffee. On Tuesday, it disrupted coffee. By Wednesday, they had pivoted out of coffee. They were building the infrastructure layer for the future of human hydration.

The investors loved it. The investors loved everything except the coffee, which had been, too literal.

“We were solving the wrong problem,” said Ryan, the CEO, at the all-hands.

Ryan was twenty-six, backed by venture funds, brash, and too cock-sure of his spin doctoring skills. He had the unblinking confidence of a man who had never been wrong long enough to notice, never staying long with a venture.

“We weren’t a coffee company. We were a warm-liquid delivery system that must scale.”

Marcus, who had joined as Head of Coffee, agreed. His title was now Head of Thermal Experience. He had the same desk. The coffee machine was still in the kitchen. Someone had put a sticky note on it that said legacy infrastructure. No one touched it.

The pivot required a rebrand. The company had been called Brewer. Now it was called Flo, with a registered trademark and a logo that looked like a water droplet that was uncertain about where to go.

A branding consultant named Derek presented seventeen logo options in a meeting that lasted four hours. The one they chose was option fourteen. Options one through thirteen were too reminiscent of existing hydration brands.

Option fifteen had tested poorly with Gen Z. Options sixteen and seventeen were described as “directional” which Marcus understood to mean wrong but expensive.

“Does the logo say water to you?” Ryan asked the room.

“It says movement,”; “It says trust,” “It says we paid Derek a lot of money,” Marcus did not say this aloud.

Flo launched a waitlist. This was standard. You could not simply offer Americans a product. You had to make them wait for it, briefly, create a splash, build word-of-mouth or WoW. They would then feel they had earned it.

Twelve thousand people joined the waitlist for an app that would remind them to drink water. Many of the signups were bots. Marcus understood that this was also something their bodies already did, through the sensation of thirst, for free.

Ryan explained, “The body’s notification system lacked one-on-one personalization.”

The app launched in beta. It sent users a push notification every forty minutes that said Hey! Time to hydrate, [Name].

Users could log their water intake in ounces, milliliters, or “sips.” Actually, sips was not a standard unit of measurement. But it had tested very well in UX feedback loops.

There was a streak system, a leaderboard, and badges. Marcus had a badge that said HYDRATION PIONEER, which he had received for drinking eight glasses of water. His doctor had been telling him to do for years, at no charge.

The Series A closed at forty million dollars.

“We’re not a hydration app,” Hanso, the innovation head said, at the press announcement.

“We’re a behavior change platform operating at the intersection of wellness, accountability, and joy.”

A journalist asked what that meant.

Ryan smiled. “It means we’re just getting started.”

Marcus went to the kitchen. The legacy coffee machine sat in the corner, patient and warm, asking nothing of anyone. He made a cup. It was good. It had always been good. That, he now understood, had been the problem.

His phone buzzed. Hey Marcus! Time to hydrate :)

He drank his coffee.

The badge did not come.

Based in Pune, India, Shashi Kadapa is the managing editor of ActiveMuse, a journal of literature. His stories across multiple genres are published in more than 45 US and UK anthologies. Winner of the IHRAF, NY short story prize, he has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Award.

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