We spend time at our place outside of the city, come the warmer weather. Two years ago, when Spring came, we noticed a small bird building her nest, tucked into a seemingly protected nook above our front door. Most people use our side door, so it was apparently out of harm’s way, and she also seemed to enjoy perching herself on the fence in front of the house, to keep an eye on her nest, and an eye out for predators and to forage.

One day, we noticed that the nest had somehow been dislodged and had fallen onto the concrete tiles. All the eggs had been destroyed. The little bird continued to perch herself on the fence in front of the door, but guess she only had one shot at that season’s eggs.

The following year, she made her nest in the same spot, and, well, history does have a way of repeating itself. Again, the nest had somehow been dislodged and had fallen, and all her eggs destroyed.

We all know that Santayana quote: what man – or in this case, bird – cannot remember he is doomed to repeat. Or maybe that’s where the term ‘bird brain’ comes from.

She arrived again this Spring and three guesses as to where she chose to construct her nest. It was an unusually windy Spring, and no sooner was the nest finished, when it had somehow been dislodged and again fell onto the concrete. Luckily, she hadn’t yet laid her eggs.

We spotted the bird perched on the fence day after day, studying the entryway. She seemed to have a certain fondness for the spot, even though the third time was definitely not the charm. So why did she continue to frequent that same spot on the fence?

We followed her gaze one morning, and noticed that she had indeed rebuilt her nest, not over the doorway this time, but tucked atop the draining pipe descending from the gutter along the roof, with trail of twigs on either side of the pipe to secure it.

We knew she’d laid her eggs. We would see her sitting on them day after day, seemingly self-satisfied. Took her a while, but she’d figured it out.

She had persisted. She found what appeared to be a protected spot. It was only a matter of all the elements being in the right place. She’d had a successful pivot.

She’d found her niche.

Investors bet more on the founders than the possible product, as we know that in tech, everyone pivots. Consider: Twitter (nee Twittr – the domain name was taken, and they couldn’t afford the ‘e’) was first developed as an information network – an “SMS service to communicate with a small group,” said Wikipedia. They initially toyed around with it being a social network, or a microblogging platform. South by Southwest changed all that.

Big time.

Founders may have a ‘clear’ idea of what their product is intended to do, but the real world/users have a way of skewing it a bit – or a lot.

Which is why ‘team’ is so important: investors would rather put their money on an A team with a B idea, than a B team with an A idea. The A team has that fire in the belly – investors know that they’ll pivot and that they’ll have the drive and persistence to figure it out, no matter how many times they have to clear the whiteboard. The B team, not so much.

As for the little birdie nesting atop the gutter pipe, she sat there patiently, week after week, tending to her eggs, and one day we noticed that she appeared to be feeding something in the nest. Not long afterwards, we noticed that her latest nest had fallen to the concrete – but there were no broken eggs this time. Her flock had evidently made it safely out into the world and the little family had flown the proverbial coop.

Which is all every investor hopes for, too: A successful exit. Onward and forward.