April 1, 2025

Another Way To Pivot Out of a Platform Specialization

In my last message, I gave you one reliable way to pivot out of a dead platform specialization without starting over from scratch.

Today, I’m going to give you another approach, but it isn’t applicable in all scenarios and might require you to learn some new tricks.

The Platform Migration Pivot

If your platform is in decline, it’s sometimes the case that the clients who are on it want to get off but don’t know how.

This is where you come in.

As an expert in the platform, you’ll probably know where clients could migrate to, and you might even have a decent idea of how to do it (or you could learn it pretty quickly).

For example, when I decided to jump ship from FileMaker back around 2006, I did sort of a half pivot to “the FileMaker/PHP Guy” and eventually wrote a book about it.

I landed a number of clients who were outgrowing FileMaker and needed a faster backend - MySQL, in my case - for their rapidly growing volume of web traffic.

Over the years, I have noticed some of my fellow FileMaker experts from back in the day jumping ship by helping their clients migrate to cloud-based platforms like Servoy, SalesForce, Rails, AirTable, and others.

Here’s the thing...

If you want to leave the platform, there might be some prospective clients out there who also want to leave and will hire you to help them do it.

Yours,

—J

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