[breckinloggins]

Is this what you might call a "soft pivot"?

The idea is that instead of waiting until it's clear your original idea won't be viable before pivoting, instead you take the most successful part of your business and differentiate it early (giving it its own brand image and so on) so that if the broader vision of your offering doesn't pan out, you've automatically expanded into your most successful niche(s) and, if needed, can shut the bigger business down without throwing out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

Businesses have done this kind of thing for centuries, but since we're in the startup world, why not give it a name? ;-)