I've been through several decades of startups and VC money, in my lifetime, and even worked for the Seattle version of YC called TechStars.

There is an incisiveness that investors have, isn't there? "That's not your business... why are you doing that?"

Erm... uh... because... it ... seemed right? Or something?

"Spin it off into a new company, affiliated with the existing one. It's a good idea too. Just not in the same box as your first Good Idea. Here's more money, and the phone number for my friend who invests in these other types of businesses you are spinning off..."

It can be head-spinning.

But amazing.

Friends of mine had a site that sold... I dunno... some sort of Web 2.0 shit, or whatever. I don't actually remember what their product was, but it was web-based.

Then they developed some tools to measure how their site was working. Admin tools on the back end.

In an investor meeting, they were demonstrating the effectiveness of their pipeline - how people were finding them, going through the purchase process, etc. - and the investors said, "Hang on... wait a minute... what's that tool you are using to show those numbers?"

It took a minute, but they realized the investors liked their BACK END more than their product!

PIVOT.

And they became the first company to provide truly viable tools for measuring SaaS success. (I think they were bought and integrated into SEOmoz, eventually.)

Life is weird. And a helluva ride.

Enjoy it!