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We recently hosted a conversation between Brock Blake, Founder & CEO of Lendio, and Marilyn Gorman, Lean Startup Co. Faculty Lead, focused on the decision to pivot one successful company into another that served a completely different niche of the market while embracing the importance of accountability. \n\nIn Brock and Marilyn\u2019s conversation, they discuss:\n- How Brock got started in the world of entrepreneurship and decided which problem to focus on.\n- How a pivot from his first idea eventually led to Lendio.\n- The \u201cbe the CEO of your job\u201d mentality and how this builds accountability for Lendio employees.\n\nAnd much, much more\u2026\n\n\nBrock Blake stumbled into the world of entrepreneurship when he was still attending college at BYU. He was studying finance and won an entrepreneurship competition that awarded him $50,000 to start a business. The only problem was that he didn\u2019t exactly know what he wanted to do, much less how to go about launching into the business world. \n\nInstead of diving in headfirst into the first idea or opportunity that presented itself, Brock decided to learn about the business of going into business. If he was going to be successful, he knew he needed to know how to be an entrepreneur. So he did his own market research and spoke to business owners in different areas of the market to know what it was like. In doing that research, he recognized a common thread between all the businesses: they needed capital. \u201cI realized...that this was a big market, a big opportunity and a big pain that I thought we could solve.\u201d\n\nEmpowered with the idea of helping businesses get on their feet, Brock launched his first business, Funding Utah (which would evolve to be Funding Universe) \u2014 which helped connect entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and angel investors. But the reality is that only one or two percent of entrepreneurs have the type of company that can or will raise money through investors. Most businesses are main street businesses, like restaurants, retail shops, landscapers or construction companies that need small business loans. \u201cIt\u2019s not great to have a business where [you\u2019re turning away] 98% of your customers because they\u2019re not going to raise money,\u201d Brock says. \n\nSo instead of staying focused on a small equity-seeking segment of the market, they decided to pivot and focus on the larger, loan-seeking 98%. And thus, Lendio \u2014 a company focused on helping small business owners get access to capital \u2014 was born.\n\nEmail us: education@leanstartup.co\nFollow Lean Startup Co. @leanstartup\nhttps://leanstartup.co/education