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Of course there are the low hanging fruits, which scored the clear success. Most of the tests although were not a clear success, but just a slightly better conversion rate.
Multiple tests applied after each other slowly increased the overall value. If taken the advice not to implement the changes of the small success, the overall amount would not have changed.
> One of the wisest and most important pieces of advice I received as a startup founder was this: “The worst outcome is a mediocre success”. …in a zero interest rate environment where there is a bunch of money sloshing around looking to roll the dice multiple times.
> make sure that there’s a well-defined distinction between success and failure. Don't fall in the messy middle. I agree this is the right thing to do, but it isn’t always possible to do for a given experiment. For instance, with the cold-calling example, how do you ensure that it’s either a smashing success or definite failure a-priori? Is there a principled way to choose the threshold number of conversions? Do you…
The successful experiments I've seen look like this: hire 2 SDRs at the time, focus them exclusively on outbound, then measure their results to identify the CAC. Then, you can make a call if that CAC is something you want to scale.
The failed experiments look like this: the founder doesn't want to invest too heavily in something that might not pay off, so we hire 1 SDR and they have to commit 50% of their time to following up on low quality Marketing leads.
It's not so much about the number itself, but more about the experiment design that will give you clear results
> One of the wisest and most important pieces of advice I received as a startup founder was this: “The worst outcome is a mediocre success”. …in a zero interest rate environment where there is a bunch of money sloshing around looking to roll the dice multiple times.
The economics of venture capital is that mediocrity gives a near zero return, and thus should go to zero as an investment
Silicon Valley normalized the idea that if you follow the scientific process (The Lean Method, finding Product/Market Fit or whatever this garbage is known in the latest terminology), and burn out for 10 years of your life, then you WILL achieve success. Most people are blind to survivorship bias even if they know the phenomenon. On top of it, incompetent, scumbag VCs muddy the waters with their snake oil "wisdom" which bright eyed, impressionable tech bros gulp down with passion.
If you achieve a "mediocre" success, which allows you financial independence, then you HAVE achieved success, regardless of what the VCs are pontificating. They'd scream because their investment didn't 1000x. Fuck them and continue living your life. Don't burn out for these soul-less MBAs.
And say you achieve the outsized "success". What then? If you go with the history of silicon valley then your so-called success is going to be a shit deal for workers, consumers and the environment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economics of venture capital is that mediocrity gives a near zero return, and thus should go to zero as an investment
What if you're bootstrapped and are just trying to make an honest living instead of playing the VC casino?
What the author means is ‘get real about continuous learning’
Of course it takes money to run experiments you can actually learn from, and the article is bereft of practical advice about doing this on the cheap.
However, I clicked. But you don’t have to.
Startup companies generally shouldn’t do science, but that same interactive process should guide you. Because when you start you never know enough.