In December 1923, three brothers, Henry, Hillel and Herman Hassenfeld, started a small company in Providence, Rhode Island. They called it Hassenfeld Brothers, and they sold textile remnants: leftover scraps of fabric that other businesses didn’t need.

It wasn’t a glamorous business, and it didn’t stay the same for long. The brothers branched out into pencil cases, then other school supplies. Eventually they made their own pencils. Over about twenty years, the company moved step by step from scraps to the school supply aisle.

School supplies brought them closer to a new customer: children. So the company tried a few toys. First modeling clay, then doctor and nurse kits for kids to play with. They sold. By 1942, Hassenfeld Brothers had become primarily a toy company.

In 1952 the company bought the rights to a toy from an inventor named George Lerner: a set of plastic eyes, ears, noses and mouths kids could stick into a potato. Mr. Potato Head became the company’s first big hit. In 1964 it launched G.I. Joe and called it an “action figure” so it would appeal to boys. In its first two years, G.I. Joe made up about two-thirds of the company’s sales. The company later shortened its name to Hasbro, and it grew into one of the largest toy companies in the world.

There was never one dramatic pivot. Each move was a small step toward the customers the company was already close to: from fabric to pencil cases, from pencil cases to school supplies, from school supplies to the children using them.

The lesson: you don’t always need a bold leap to change direction. Look at who your current product puts you in front of, and what else those customers need. A series of small steps toward them can take a business much further than one big bet on something unfamiliar.