This is just a clickbait of the highest caliber. Not only the pivot didn't turn out to be a mistake after all, but the article is a blatant promo piece, and wasn't any mistakes anyway. Intentionally trying to implement new functionality is not a mistake, it's, well, an intentional action.

I only read it because I wanted to hear about how a pivot killed the company lol

Better title would have been: Unintential pivot became a success

Well, the pivot itself was not intended. Normally, you read data and decide to pivot in a direction you're aware of based on the data.

In this case, I had in mind building a mobile version of Beepl, NOT a trivia game. I never intended the pivot to happen and for some while I was lost as to what the hell had just happened.

I might even argue that its not a pivot in its right sense because the end products are absolutely unrelated. I mean, how is a trivia game the pivot of a CRM? :P

I was also confused by the wording. The word 'mistake' makes it feel like a very negative article.