Running experiments for fun and profit

If your project is alchemical transmutation, I’m not sure a 90-day sprint is going to do it. (National Library of Medicine)

A friend of mine is starting a new business.

However, he’s a little self-conscious about calling it a business. That’s because it hasn’t made any money yet. But, strictly speaking, it’s not a hobby. The intention is not to just have fun. The intention is profit, eventually.

How do we bridge that gap? How do we launch the thing if we aren’t sure whether it is going to work?

What I would recommend — and what I practice — is to establish a set commitment to the project in a set time frame, complete with a way of measuring the desired outcome.

You aren’t necessarily committing to the project, but you’re committing to a part of it. It’s an experiment, complete with hypothesis: “If I do X, then Y will happen.” At the end, you assess the results and decide on the next experiment.

This works for a few reasons. First, it allows you to be really clear about what your intention is so that emotions don’t cloud reality. Did the actions yield the expected result, or not?

Moreover, defining the parameters of the experiment forces you to define the actions you’re going to take — you have to make a plan to make it work.

And perhaps best of all, an established plan within a defined time frame prevents you from second-guessing yourself every step of the way. You’ve already decided the exact date when you’ll evaluate the experiment. You can shelve the dithering until then.

When I first moved to Atlanta, I figured that I needed to teach about $2,000 worth of music lessons every month to keep the lights on in my life. I hypothesized that if I focused on advertising in the places that my potential clients might go, I would get students. I further hypothesized that seeking partnerships would also be a good way of getting students.

I built a website, called local music schools to offer my services, put up flyers, and hand-delivered postcards door-to-door in nearby neighborhoods. I gave myself three months of runway before I would have to get a job waiting tables (the only other way I could think of to earn $2,000 per month).

My cousin said to me, “Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always move back to Maine.”

I started on January 2 of that year. By the end of February, I had a few students, and picked up a few more in March. I was still nowhere near my income goal, so I got a job waiting tables.

However, it was clear that my hypotheses were correct. People were responding to my postcards and flyers, and I’d gotten hired at one music school. So I kept my activities going.

It worked! I quit the restaurant by May because I was getting so many students. I had done it! My cousin was impressed.

Looking back, it was sort of easy to run that experiment because I had literally nothing to lose. However, I’m running an experiment like this now, with a more established life and career. And it still doesn’t feel risky because the point of experimentation is to minimize risk. Going all-in isn’t a way of showing that I believe in myself — it might just be foolish. Instead, I can limit the time and money I spend, define my activities carefully, and go from there.

We can’t always know at the outset whether we have a winner. And we can’t win unless we’re willing to make the investment of effort necessary to pursue our vision. But that doesn’t mean we have to decide today whether our idea is going to work. We can figure it out in stages, saving ourselves heartache and valuable resources.

I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t found any music students after months of trying. I guess I would have tried something else. That wouldn’t necessarily have meant that my experiment failed. Maybe it would have just meant that my hypothesis was proven false. That’s okay — there’s always another one.