On experimentation
My friendtor (friend + mentor), Deb Giunta , was the first person to introduce me to the concept of experimentation as a business practice.
We were sitting in the kitchen on a women’s retreat when Deb said something like, “I doing this new thing where I speak about my projects as experiments. I’ll say, ‘I’m trying out XYZ project.’”
Deb didn’t know it, but that offhand remark gave me permission to experiment. Not everything needed to perfect or permanent. I was free to test things out.
I’ve done my fair share of experimentation. Launching. Tweaking. Refining. Scrapping projects altogether.
People even tell me that my willingness to pivot gives them permission to do the same.
That doesn’t mean it comes easily. In fact, I just had a peer coaching session where we explored my fears about trying something new with Inner Warmup, Inner Workout’s podcast.
I’ll spare you the monologue from my inner critic. Suffice it to say that she wanted to launch something splashy, but only if it could be perfect from the get-go. Very unrealistic of her.
Instead, we’re experimenting with a seasonal format.
My favorite part of experimentation? You can’t fail an experiment. You simply learn.
How to run your own experiments
Clarify what you’re testing for. What exactly are you trying to learn or figure out? It could be as technical as “Will this increase our customer lifetime value?” or as qualitative as “I want to feel excited and energized by this project again.” That’s actually what I’m testing for with the upcoming podcast changes.
Set parameters. Experiments have a clear container. Are you testing this for a month or a quarter? How will you know you know it was successful? For me, my podcast experiment is successful if I maintain or grow the current listenership while giving myself more space to be creative in the process.
Start small. Maybe I’m the only one who needs to hear this because my tendency is to see something and immediately envision what it could look like at scale. So I have to scale down my experiments. Let’s be honest, I also have to have people in my life who remind me to scale down my experiments… The Instead Kickstarter campaign was an analog experiment for an app I might build when I have a spare moment some day.
Do something with the results. Scrap the project entirely. Use your insights to spark another experiment. Reflect and integrate your most powerful learnings. I don’t really care what you do with your results, as long as you do something with them. The point of experimentation is to learn, remember? Make sure you’re not missing the point.
I wanna hear about your experiments! Reply to this email or comment below.
I’m pausing on book launch asks (besides pre-ordering the book!) while I get my ducks in a row. More to come in the new year.
Wanna work together? I have space to work with three business owners starting in January. If you’ve got some $$$ to burn in order to reduce your tax burden, this is a fruitful way to do it!