What Makes a Meaningful Pursuit for an Early-Stage Startup?

When building a product as a startup, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll reach a point where you need to pivot, whether it’s at the hypothesis stage or after launching a product. But how can we ensure that a pivot becomes more than just a change in direction and actually leads to real growth for the team and product?

My conclusion was this: we need to clearly define the domain we want to focus on and pivot only within that space.

This is because I believe that the insights, experiences, and networks gained from each attempt should directly contribute to the next challenge. Of course, there are many teams that have succeeded in other ways, but for us, this approach felt like the most efficient path for fast growth and real progress.

That’s why I decided to focus on “Agent.”

I am well aware that there are skeptics who argue “Agents are just hype” or “The buzz is already over.” But the market is still paying attention to agents and game-changing products are continuing to emerge. Protocols like MCP and A2A are also being released leading to rapid growth of the agent ecosystem.

Rather than debating whether it’s a red ocean or blue ocean, I see this pace of growth and ecosystem development as an opportunity that can’t be disregarded - and the inevitable challenges that arise from this fast-pace development are both the problem startups are meant to solve and chances which startups should take.

I have been building LLM applications since early 2023, even before the concept of “agents” became mainstream. Thanks to my existing network, I have a network of hundreds of potential users; this greatly influenced my decision to concentrate on this field - agent.

Now it’s your turn. How are you navigating your own startup journey? I am always eager to learn from others.