Tiny Experiments: A Different Way to Think About Failure

I Stopped Being Afraid of Failure When I Stopped Making Failure So Big

I’ve experienced a lot of what other people might perceive as failure.

I’ve made big investments in ideas that didn’t work out the way I expected. I committed time, money, energy and, perhaps most importantly, belief to things I was convinced could work.

Some did. Some didn’t.

For a long time, when something didn’t work, I tended to look at the outcome and ask:

What did I get wrong?

I’m starting to ask a different question:

What did I learn?

It sounds like a subtle distinction. It isn’t.

Because I’m realizing that, directionally, I was often right. What I didn’t do was run enough small experiments along the way to figure out where the value actually was.

I Knew About Tiny Experiments. I Just Wasn’t Using Them.

The idea isn’t new to me.

Design thinking teaches us to test ideas, learn from what happens and iterate. Instead of spending enormous amounts of time and money perfecting an idea before finding out whether anyone wants it, create something small enough to test.

A prototype. A pilot. A conversation. A class. A different price. A new partnership.

A tiny experiment.

Intellectually, I understood that.

In practice, I often did something quite different.

I made big bets.

And the bigger the investment became, the more I needed the idea to work.

That’s when experimentation becomes surprisingly difficult.

The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

When you’re both overcommitted and underfunded, you don’t have much room for things not to work.

You need the client.

You need the partnership.

You need the sale.

You need the idea to succeed.

And that need can create fear.

Fear makes us hold on longer. It can make us negotiate against ourselves, continue investing in something that isn’t producing the right signals, or spend enormous amounts of mental energy trying to make a misaligned relationship work.

Ironically, the need to make something work can also shut down the very thing entrepreneurs need most:

Creativity.

When all of your energy is focused on saving Plan A, it becomes much harder to see Plans B, C and D.

That’s something I understand much better now.

What If Failure Were Smaller?

Lately, I’ve been running a lot of tiny experiments.

Some have worked.

Quite a few haven’t.

But something surprising has happened.

I feel lighter.

Instead of every idea carrying the burden of This has to work, I’m increasingly approaching opportunities with curiosity:

Let’s see what happens.

Try something.

Pay attention.

Reflect on what happened.

Keep what works.

Change what doesn’t.

Try again.

And sometimes:

Stop.

That last one might be the most important.

An experiment doesn’t only tell you what to pursue. Sometimes it tells you what not to pursue.

Failure Can Give You More Than an Answer

One of the things that has surprised me is how often the most valuable learning from an experiment has nothing to do with the question I originally set out to answer.

An experiment intended to test demand might teach me something about pricing.

A new partnership might teach me how I want contracts structured.

A sales experiment might reveal that I need a better tool or system.

An experience that doesn’t work might establish a new red line around how I want to be treated or how I want to work.

And sometimes a difficult new relationship makes me appreciate the good relationships I already have.

That last one has been especially valuable.

There Are Good Customers and Bad Customers

Anyone who has spent enough time in sales has probably heard people talk about “good customers” and “bad customers.”

I used to think about that largely in financial terms.

A good customer buys more. A bad customer requires too much effort for too little return.

Now I think there’s another dimension:

Alignment.

A good client, customer or partner understands the value you bring.

You understand the value they bring.

The economics work for both sides.

There is mutual respect.

Your values and expectations about how you work together are reasonably aligned.

And perhaps most importantly, the relationship gives you the energy to do your best work rather than consuming your energy trying to make the relationship itself work.

When you find that kind of alignment, value it.

And when you don’t, pay attention to that too.

The Experiment Is Supposed to Give You an Answer

This is where I think we sometimes misunderstand failure.

We imagine failure as the enormous belly flop.

The business closes. The relationship ends. The investment disappears. The career doesn’t work out.

There’s loss. And often shame.

But what if we made failure much smaller?

What if instead of making one enormous bet, we made a series of thoughtful, relatively inexpensive experiments?

Then something not working isn’t necessarily a verdict.

It’s information.

That class didn’t resonate. Why?

People liked the idea but wouldn’t pay the price. What does that tell me?

The opportunity looked good, but the working relationship felt wrong. What did I learn about the partners I want?

Something worked unexpectedly well. What should I do more of?

The purpose of the experiment isn’t to prove that you were right.

It’s to learn something you didn’t know before you ran it.

Move. Reflect. Plan. Reset. Momentum.

I’ve been thinking about all of this in the context of The Achievable Plan and the framework I use: Move, Reflect, Plan, Reset and Momentum.

I’m beginning to see tiny experiments as an important part of moving through that cycle.

Move enough to create new information.

Reflect on what actually happened—not what you hoped would happen.

Plan the next small experiment rather than assuming you need to know the entire path.

Reset when the evidence tells you something needs to change.

Then use what you’ve learned to create Momentum.

And repeat.

A plan doesn’t have to be a commitment to keep moving in the same direction regardless of what happens.

A good plan should help us learn.

Start Where You Are

Perhaps that’s also why Start Where You Are continues to resonate with me.

You don’t need to know exactly where something will lead before you begin.

You don’t need every experiment to succeed.

And you don’t need to turn every opportunity into something bigger simply because you’ve invested time in it.

Sometimes you move forward.

Sometimes you change direction.

Sometimes you discover something you never expected.

And sometimes you learn that the relationship, opportunity or idea simply isn’t right for you.

Walking away from that isn’t necessarily failure.

Perhaps that’s the experiment working.