Pivoting can be the difference between a business's life and death. Those that didn't make it have sad epitaphs: Kodak: "Clung to film after digital photos became king." Blockbuster: "Ignored streaming while Netflix rewrote the script." Nokia: "Connected people, but lost out on smartphones."

Changing course mid-journey can be painful, but as the above examples show, the alternative is worse. Think of a ship whose captain sees a major storm brewing on the horizon. Sure, the route has already been carefully plotted. But to continue on without accounting for new conditions would obviously be foolish.

When to pivot and how are questions that every entrepreneur has to face. Here's how to do it.

Related: Pivoting My Startup Saved It From Failing — Here's How It Can Help Yours, Too

Pivoting is sometimes necessary, but you also don't want to overdo it. A study from Duet Partners shows that startups that pivot once or twice have 3.6 times better user growth and are more than 50 percent less likely to scale prematurely than startups that either pivot not at all or more than two times.

This data shows that how you approach your pivot is........

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