Fail Fast, Fail Often: My 1-in-20 Hit Rate | Daily Essay

Show Notes

Most experiments fail, and that's the point. About 1 in 20 becomes a material win that keeps paying, and you can't tell which before you run it. So run more.

Featuring: Peter Lynch

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Creators and Guests

Host

Dru Riley

Founder of Trends.vc

PL

Guest

Peter Lynch

Featured in Dru's Notes: Fail Fast, Fail Often: My 1-in-20 Hit Rate.

What is Dru's Notes?

One mental model each day in a few minutes. Habits, business, building products and thinking clearly. From Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc.

"In this business, if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten."
Peter Lynch

I wrote a Trends Report on indie hackers.

One pattern came up again and again. They launch a lot. Most launches go nowhere. About 1 in 20 sticks around and turns into something real. They call it the 5% rule.

I see the same pattern in my own work at a smaller scale. My unit isn't a launched business. It's an experiment: anything I try that's uncertain or uncomfortable. Track which ones become material wins. The rate rhymes. Roughly 1 in 20.

A material win is the rare one that keeps paying after it lands:

- Opens a door
- Becomes a tool I reuse
- Starts a trajectory I'm still on

Most experiments miss. That's fine. A few keep paying.

So 20 is my hurdle rate: the floor I run above so the work keeps compounding instead of drifting. I've used the same idea on habits, where the hurdle rate is the minimum a habit needs to clear the entropy working against it.

You don't know which experiment pays before you run it. So run more.

How does your experimentation rate set you up for regular wins?