One of my music heroes is the late Andrew Weatherall…

He produced Screamadelica, the influential early ‘90s indie-dance crossover album by Primal Scream.

After that, he formed two amazing electronic bands – The Sabres of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen.

At the same time, he produced loads of great albums by bands, made some legendary 12” remixes, and DJed in clubs to huge crowds.

He also released amazingly eclectic DJ mixtapes with everything from rockabilly and postpunk to nu-disco and techno… sometimes all on one mix!

Despite this success, Weatherall was what you’d call a ‘non musician’.

He wasn’t trained, he couldn’t play an instrument and he was certainly no virtuoso.

Weatherall’s strength was in his willingness to experiment.

He’d take musical ingredients and styles that didn’t normally go together, mash them up, and see what happened.

Even his devoted fans would admit that it wasn’t always 100% successful. But he was so prolific, it didn’t matter, because the music kept coming, and a lot of it was brilliant.

Andew Weatherall lived by a motto, which he coined himself:

“FAIL WE MAY… SAIL WE MUST!”

What he meant was, YES, there is a huge risk to any meaningful endeavour.

Every attempt to reach an ambitious goal comes with a level of uncertainty.

But what choice do we have in life?

We could decide to do nothing, try nothing, and get nowhere…

Or we can set sail and see what happens.

Andrew Weatherall’s approach was to not to fear failure…. and not to play it safe just to avoid it.

This is a principle that you should apply to creating a product or running a side business.

Rather than worry about failing, you should embrace it as a necessary part of the process.

In fact, here’s a radical idea.

You should try failing MORE… and failing FASTER.

Here’s why…

The Big Mistake Most First-Timers Make

Right now, you might be working on a product or service that you need to launch at some point – sooner or later.

For instance, an eBook to sell on Amazon.

A set of printable planners for Etsy…

A paid Substack…

A digital course…

A range of framed art prints…

Naturally, the product feels like a big deal.

You’ve spent a lot of time on it and when the launch draws near, you’ll feel increasingly nervous.

Which can make you resist hitting the ‘GO’ button for a little bit longer, until you get it absolutely right.

Maybe you fiddle with the title…. change the cover…. rewrite the sales page… agonise over the price.

Perhaps you ask friends what they think, wait for their feedback and then spend another weekend working on it.

Eventually, you send your creation into the world…

Then you wait, biting your nails and pacing the living room like a caged tiger.

Now, it could be that you get INSTANT success!

Clicks, subscribers, orders and sales come flooding in.

But more often than not, when you’re setting out on your first home business, this isn’t quite what happens.

Maybe nobody clicks the advert.

Maybe your Etsy listing gets 42 views and zero orders.

Maybe your new Substack attracts just six subscribers, four of whom are people you already know.

It’s not a pleasant feeling.

Because after putting so much effort into your great idea, it feels like it was all for nothing.

You have FAILED!

At this point, many people throw their hands up in despair and walk away.

Surely, this proves that the system doesn’t work.. the plan was flawed.. or they lack the required skills and intelligence!

Either that, or they go back to the drawing board and spend another three months making an improved version of something that the market might STILL not want.

However, there is another, far better way to go about things.

The Experimental Approach To Digital Business

You’ll be tempted to treat your first product, service or marketing campaign as a sacred object that you MUST make perfectly, at all costs.

Because it lives or dies by its success.

So you feel like you can give it only ONE shot.

And if it doesn’t do what you hoped it would do, you feel crushed, like your one chance has been blown.

But instead, think of each creation as an experiment.

The aim is simply to test the market.

Rather than craft the perfect finished article you should ask yourself, “What’s the quickest, cheapest way I can find out whether this idea has potential?”

Because it might be that you need 5… 10… even 20 attempts until you get the right formula.

Out of ten ideas you test, seven might go nowhere…

But those aren’t failures.

They’re experiences you can learn from.

Each one gives you a little more information about the market and about the customer you’re trying to reach.

Then you might have a couple of tests that go okay – perhaps you get results, but they’re hardly breakthroughs.

So you take that info, make some changes, and try again.

Then your TENTH attempt could hit the bullseye.

This is when you know you’re onto something.

Now you can go back to your product, shape it and perfect it, KNOWING that all your time, effort and money won’t be wasted.

Can You Now See Why We All Need Failures?

Without them you can’t get useful feedback.

And you need these failures to happen fast if you want to give yourself enough shots at your ultimate goal.

Because you don’t want to spend six months discovering that an idea doesn’t work. Ideally, you want to discover this in six weeks, or even six DAYS.

This is why the marketing advice is always to test, test, test!

Now, this used to be quite a big challenge, especially for a solo home entrepreneur.

Twenty or thirty years ago, testing could have meant manufacturing stock… printing a newsletter or sales brochures… paying for adverts… hiring designers…

This could take many months and cost thousands of pounds.

But in the digital age, it is easy, quick and low cost to test.

You can conduct useful little commercial experiments for £10, £20 or £50…. or sometimes for FREE!

Here is how…

Break Down Product Creation Into Testable Steps

Let’s say you’re thinking about creating a digital course aimed at older gardeners about growing nutritious herbs that help relieve pain, fatigue and brain fog.

The traditional approach would be to spend two months filming gardening demonstration videos…

Designing planting calendars…

Setting up a dedicated Instagram feed…

Creating special nutrition reports about various herbs….

Launching a monthly webinar with Q&A.

Maybe even a membership area or Facebook Group.

But instead of trying to get all that written, filmed, designed and uploaded…

You could simply test whether people are actually hungry for this.

Start with a short, downloadable PDF report on a simple squeeze page, with a “10 of the Best Pain Relieving Pants You Can Grow In a Small English Garden”.

To access the report, someone will need to submit their email address, which will give you permission to contact them.

But don’t just try ONE idea.

Test it against other reports that take different angles and have different promises, like…

• The Complete Guide to Growing Medicinal Herbs
• How to Grow £500 Worth of Vegetables in a Small Garden
• The Over-60s Guide to Growing Your Own Healing Food

Using AI, you could create these in a few days.

Then use a series of Facebook ads to promote your reports – again, test multiple different ads for each one.

See which ads get the most clicks, and which report gets the most downloads.

Within a week or so you’ll have a good idea of

If people want this info or not

What goals they most urgently want to solve

Now you have a decent basis for pursuing your course project.

What’s more, you have a small list of people to whom you can start sending a weekly email, with free content related to gardening, nutrition and pain relief.

Each of these emails becomes a test, too!

Try different subject lines and different topics..

Ask for feedback or send them a simple survey…

Include links to more short reports to see what they click on.

Now you can go one step further…

Create The Smallest Possible Version Of Your Product

Rather than go all-out to make the completed final product, you could try and do something smaller as a test.

For instance, if you have an idea for a 150-page eBook, could you test it as a 25-page PDF?

If you want to create a six-week course worth £295, could you begin with a 1-hour online workshop that costs £19?

If you want to start a paid newsletter, could you publish five free issues first and measure the response?

If you’re considering an Etsy shop selling printable wedding planners, don’t create a range of 20 products all branded the same way…

Test five in wildly different styles and see which ones get the most attention (if any!)

Remember, even if these tests don’t work, you can try more.

Sometimes the basic idea might be fine but just one element that is wrong, so you could test:

• The headline
• The price
• The audience
• The image
• The format
• The promise

Just one of those might suddenly get the sales or signups that you’re looking for.

And this is one of the great advantages of digital products – you can make these tweaks for no cost.

The key is to monitor and track your experiments properly, as if you’re a scientist in a lab!

For example:

• TEST: £7.99 printable meal planner.
• RESULT: 186 Etsy impressions, 17 visits, no sales.
• LEARNING: Some search interest, poor conversion.
• NEXT TEST: New thumbnail + £4.99 price + family meal-planning angle.

Or:

• TEST: Email subject line “How to Make Money from Knitting Patterns”.
• RESULT: 38% open rate, unusually high click rate.
• LEARNING: Garden-income angle attracts attention.
• NEXT TEST: £9 mini guide on selling plants and cuttings.

With this approach, you build your business in response to evidence, rather than putting all your chips on just one outcome and praying for a big win!

How to Test Physical Products

This principle works beyond purely digital products.

If you want to test physical goods on Amazon, for instance, you don’t need to order a container-load from China on day one.

They could source a handful of suitable products domestically… create some listings… spend a small amount on Amazon advertising… and see whether buyers respond.

If nothing happens, you can move on.

But if sales begin appearing consistently, THEN you can look at investigating wholesale purchasing, private labelling and larger quantities.

Even better, if you make your own physical products using Print on Demand, you don’t need to buy stock at all.

Let’s say you’ve an idea for a range of mugs aimed at teachers.

With print-on-demand, you can create the designs digitally and upload them to a supplier that only manufactures the product after somebody orders it.

So you could come up with some slogan idea like:

• “Powered by Coffee”
• “Teacher Fuel”
• “I Teach. What’s Your Superpower?”
• “Survived Another Parents’ Evening”

Then you can put those designs onto Etsy, Amazon or your own website and watch what happens.

You don’t need physical samples because most print-on-demand platforms allow you to create mock-ups that show your design printed on the finished product.

So you can quickly see what it would look like on a T-shirt… tote bag… mug… notebook… cushion… poster… or hoodie.

You can then use those mockups in your listings and adverts to discover which attract the most attention.

Perhaps nobody wants your design on a T-shirt…but the same design on a mug starts selling.

Or perhaps your generic dog-owner design disappears without trace…but the version aimed specifically at whippet owners gets clicks and sales.

This kind of data is absolute GOLD!

But in order to attain this knowledge, it does take a certain willingness to get it wrong, miss the mark, and fail.

Which means being brave.

Fail you may… yes, that’s true!

But if you want to succeed, then sail you MUST!