If you’re not embarrassed by your first version you launched too late is a common mantra in the world of startups. But this idea applies not just in tech, but to all creative acts.
Before Jerry Seinfeld performed his set for the Netflix Special 23 Hours To Kill, he was testing his material in underground comedy clubs across the US. He even talks about testing in the same way tech people talk about running product tests.
“The audience just dumps a bunch of data on you, of, ‘This is good, this is okay, this is very good, this is terrible.’ That goes into my brain from performing it on stage. Then it’s back through the rewrite process and then new ideas will come…”
The same is true in writing. Most people think authors work in secret on their manuscript, trading notes back and forth with their editors until ta-da launch day! Hardly.
Some of the best writers I know are constantly testing material with readers before a book is ever published. Blog posts. Newsletters. Social media posts. However raw and unrefined, it’s all data.
By the time you have your book launch or Netflix special, nobody remembers the pieces that bombed. Meanwhile, you got to test and keep only the best material.
All for the price of being (temporarily) embarrassed.
