I was listening to a Business of Software podcast, and a phrase got to me, it was something like this:
If 70% of new ventures/startups fail, and of those 30% that succeed they each likely had to pivot one or more times, then that means 100% of startup ideas failed.
I’ve no doubt misremembered the numbers, but that’s not the point. That point is that all of our ideas will likely fail the first time around.
If that's true, then the most important thing we can do is find ways to experiment and learn and have it cost as little as possible. Run small experiments, do small iterations, learn as quickly as you can.
It's not a new or revolutionary insight and it's be made thousands of times before, but it was a helpful and timely reminder for me.