If Burbn Didn’t Pivot to Instagram, We Might Not Have Threads

Lean Whiskey

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In Episode 40, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh get back together after their in-person visit where they enjoyed the origins of this podcast: talking about lean stuff while enjoying some whiskey. We get to celebrate the launch of Mark’s new book, The Mistakes That Make Us, as well as Jamie’s new podcast titled People Solve Problems. We recap our in-person visit and some of the great whiskey we were able to try. And we taste one of the expressions we were able to try at the distillery, New Riff’s Straight Bottled-in-Bond Malted Rye.

We then pivoted to talking about pivots, starting with the example of how Instagram originally started as Burbn check-in app to share your drinking experiences with others. It then pivoted to photo sharing, and the rest is history. We compare and contrast other pivots, including Play-Doh, the pacemaker, Slack and Twitter, 3M Post-its, and a purple dye found when trying to cure malaria. We share some lessons from each of our books about how to enable and / or embrace the pivot when the opportunity presents itself.

We wrap up talking a bit about the book writing process, and the joys and pains that accompany it. Cheers!

• Mark’s book, The Mistakes That Make Us, is now available for purchase
• Jamie launched a new podcast, People Solve Problems, interviews based on his book
• Mark and Jamie’s analog in-person Lean Whiskey
• We visited Revival Vintage Bottle Shop, Prohibition Bourbon Bar, and New Riff Distilling
• Mark and Jamie both pouring the New Riff Kentucky Straight Bottled-in-Bond Malted Rye Whiskey
• Instagram pivoted from Burbn
• Instagram, or Meta, also recently launched Threads. You can find Mark here and Jamie here
• Making purple dye from a failed malaria drug
• Hold on Loosely by 38 Special on Spotify
• Podcast feed at LeanWhiskey.com or leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or jflinch.com/leanwhiskey

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