How Knowing When to Pivot Built a Better Company

A pivot most founders never admit to considering out loud. Caitlin Leksana is CEO and Co-Founder of Fazeshift, an AI platform for accounts receivable backed by Gradient and Y Combinator, and she's lived the failed startup that made this one work. She and her co-founder killed their crypto marketing startup after a false-positive revenue signal, fired a Japanese conglomerate client mid-shutdown, and found the real idea from a color-coded spreadsheet she'd built just to track invoices. The company has since raised $27 million and grown to 35 people by doing the thing she almost skipped the first time: calling customers before building anything.