Ever get something just right on the first try? I do occasionally and am always very pleasantly surprised whenever it happens. More often I try something new and it doesn’t work. I try a second time and maybe it sort of works. It may take three tries before I really get it right.
We can play it safe. If we really don’t want to fail, we just don’t ever try anything new. Where’s the fun in that? Babe Ruth said that he liked to hit home runs. He hit a lot of them, setting a record that stood for almost half a century. But he also struck out a lot more than most players. He realized that he wasn’t going to hit home runs unless he really tried. More tries mean more successes but also mean more failures.
We see this a lot in CPG (consumer packaged goods) manufacturing. Companies try new products and they fail. Over 80% of them by some reports.
Think of it as a failure funnel. Five go in, one comes out. But that one only comes out if five go in.
It’s trite to say that we must do everything possible to make successful products. Of course. Nobody ever sets out to make an unsuccessful product. As importantly, if failure is going to happen, it must occur as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Here are three things you need to do:
- Get into production as quickly as possible. Being first can go a long way to success
- Minimize the costs of the trial. Use existing lines if possible, rent production machinery or contract manufacture if need be. At this point, the goal is to find out if the product can be profitable, not so much to actually make a profit.
- Success or failure will generally be fast. Recognize it when it occurs. On the one hand, don’t let wishful thinking “maybe it just needs a little more time…” get in the way of killing a failure. When it is a success, capitalize on it. Improve manufacturing, reduce cost and price to drive up volume and profit.
There’s no success without failure and there is certainly no success without trying. Fail frequently enough and success is guaranteed.
