Everything Is an Experiment

Why your business should look more like a lab than a museum

By Chad McMillan

Spoiler: No one knows what they’re doing.

Here’s a truth no one tells you when you start a business: Everything—and I mean everything—is an experiment.

The pricing. The packaging. The pitch deck. The team structure. The Tuesday standups. The decision to offer kombucha in the office fridge. Every single thing you’re doing? It’s a giant, beautiful, sometimes-dumb experiment.

And you know what?

That’s OK. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

Because there is no formula. There’s no secret playbook. And anyone who tells you they’ve “cracked the code” is probably trying to sell you a course that includes 97 Canva templates and a 90-minute Zoom about “funnel optimization.”

The reality? Even the big guys—the billion-dollar, global, Fortune 500, “we have a TikTok team” companies—are guessing. They’re experimenting, failing, pivoting and face-planting just like the rest of us.

Let’s not pretend we’re above the mess. Let’s embrace the mess and call it what it is: science. With branding.

There is no checklist for success (sorry).

If you’re hoping for a magic checklist that guarantees success, I’ve got bad news and a dry-erase board full of bad decisions to show you. There’s no checklist. There’s no 12-step sequence. No plug-and-play blueprint. Why? Because what works for one business might be a dumpster fire for another.

You are not Apple. You are not Taco Bell. You are not a legacy brand with a war chest and 17 layers of management who all signed off on that $7 million commercial that made zero sense.

You are you. With your people. Your quirks. Your context. Your barely-holding-it-together tech stack. So, you’ve got to figure out what works for you. Not what’s trending on LinkedIn. Not what Gary Vee yelled about last week. You.

That’s the formula: There is no formula.

Everyone screws up (even the icons).

Think you’re too good to mess up? Cool. So was Apple when they released the iPhone 4 with an antenna that only worked when you didn’t hold the phone. So was Coca-Cola when they tried to replace their iconic formula with “New Coke,” which was basically like Pepsi with an identity crisis. So was Taco Bell when they . . . well, they’re Taco Bell. Honestly, we expect a little chaos. But still, they’ve had lawsuits over their meat content. Their meat.

These are billion-dollar companies. With departments full of experts and entire buildings full of people who have meetings about meetings. And they still screw it up sometimes.

So, if you think your small business has to run flawlessly like a Swiss watch made of angel tears—relax. You’re going to make mistakes. Bad hires. Dumb decisions. Overcommitments. Underdeliveries.

You’re going to ship some things that are . . . not your best. That’s not failure. That’s data. And these are just the ones you hear about. Imagine all the ones you haven’t.

Edison didn’t “fail” 10,000 times—he just had that many bad ideas first.

Let’s talk about Thomas Edison, the OG king of invention and experimentation. We’ve heard his story in one variation or another a hundred times. He didn’t invent the lightbulb overnight. In fact, he supposedly “failed” 10,000 times before finding the version that worked.

When asked about it, Edison didn’t say, “Yeah, that was humiliating, and I cried into my kerosene lamp every night.” No. Essentially, he said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not even failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.”

That’s either an inspiring reframe or the world’s most confident humblebrag. Either way, it’s the truth. Success doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from iteration. From trying stuff. From experimenting long enough to finally find out.

So, what makes you think your product, email sequence, onboarding workflow or client process needs to be perfect on the first try? It doesn’t. It needs to be live. It needs to be tried and refined like an A/B-tested concept. It needs to breathe, evolve and, yes, sometimes, fall flat on its face like a toddler learning how gravity works.

Your business is a lab, not a museum.

Stop treating your business like a sacred museum exhibit where everything needs to be polished, labeled and climate-controlled. For goodness’ sake, treat it like what it is: a lab. Experiment. Try things you haven’t before. Scrap things. Revise. Rethink. Rework. Rebuild.

Try a new pricing model. Test a different meeting cadence. Let your most passionate team member pitch a weird idea just to see what happens. Delete the thing that doesn’t work. Take notes. Adjust. Repeat. Labs are messy environments, but they’re the only place your breakthroughs can happen.

Mistakes are allowed. Whoever said they weren’t?

Seriously, who made the rule that mistakes = failure? Was it some sad consultant in a tucked-in golf shirt? Was it your high school econ teacher with the clip-on tie? Was it TikTok influencers who haven’t been inside a real office since 2006?

Mistakes aren’t the enemy. They’re the tuition you pay for clarity.

Some of our best decisions were born from absolute disasters:

We lost a client? Cool. It freed up time for a better one.

A product launch bombed? Awesome. That audience wasn’t our people anyway.

We hired a nightmare person who cried in the bathroom and rage-messaged everyone? Great. Now we know what red flags actually look like.

Every stumble is a data point. And the faster you collect them, the faster you refine your process.

Flaws make it human. Human makes it work.

Let’s talk about authenticity—not the overused marketing buzzword that gets slapped on every brand guide like a sticker on a Hydro Flask, but actual authenticity—the kind that shows up in your mess, your learning curve and your willingness to admit you don’t have it all figured out.

Here’s the paradox: People don’t fall in love with perfect. They fall in love with real. With your rough edges. With your in-progress ideas. With the way your team owns its mistakes and keeps showing up anyway.

That’s why people root for small businesses. That’s why they stay loyal to founders who admit when something isn’t working. That’s why a half-scrappy client process can still win if it’s fueled by intention, effort and honesty. You want to build trust? Don’t pretend to be polished. Be present. Be learning. Be genuine.

Why we still eat at chain restaurants (and it’s not just the fries).

Look, nobody goes to a Taco Bell expecting a Michelin-star experience. You go because you want something that’s realistic, immediate and maybe slightly questionable, but consistently in motion.

They try new things. Sometimes, it’s genius. (Nacho fries.) Sometimes, it’s a crime. (The seafood salad of 1986. Look it up. It happened.) But they try. They evolve. They experiment. They own their brand. And in that process, they become familiar and trusted, not because they always get it right, but because they’re committed to figuring it out in real time. People love that.

It’s the same with your business. Clients don’t expect you to be flawless, but they do want to know that you care, that you’re adapting and that you’ll still be standing (and improving) when the cheese hits the fan.

Your flaws are proof you’re evolving.

Flaws aren’t disqualifiers. They’re receipts that you’re in the lab: testing, trying, growing, making progress.

You want to connect with people? Show them your version of the messed-up seafood salad. Tell them about the idea that tanked. Talk about the launch that flatlined. Share the pitch that bombed so hard your soul briefly left your body.

Not because it’s cute. But because it’s relatable. And because it shows that you’re willing to swing, even if you miss sometimes. Authenticity doesn’t come from saying, “We’re authentic.” It comes from doing the work, owning the misses and letting people see the journey instead of just the highlight reel.

Polished is fine. Real is better.

Look, you can sand the edges and pretty up the process later. But don’t hide the reality of where you are. That’s where the relatability lives. That’s where the trust is built. That’s where your voice gets its edge.

Your audience doesn’t need perfect. They need to know you’re in it—fully, intentionally and unapologetically figuring it out as you go.

Be messy. Be bold. Be authentic. Because in a world full of curated crap, the business that says, “Hey, we’re experimenting, but we care,” is the one that earns the loyalty.

Embrace the chaos. Call it science.

Your business will never be done. It will never be finished. It will never run perfectly, effortlessly, like some Instagram-friendly productivity fantasy where everyone smiles and drinks branded water out of minimalist bottles.

It will be messy. Scrappy. Flawed. Glorious. Because it’s a living, breathing thing. Built by humans. Not robots. Not algorithms. Not checklists. So, the next time something breaks? Laugh. Fix it. Write it down. Try something else. Then, pat yourself on the back and say, “It’s cool. Everything’s an experiment.”

Because that’s what it is. And that’s what it’ll always be.

Welcome to the lab.

Here’s what we know for sure: Your business isn’t a perfect machine. It’s not a polished presentation. It’s not a clean, airtight system you set once and walk away from like a George Foreman grill.

It’s a lab. A messy, unpredictable, gloriously imperfect place where you mix things, blow some stuff up, try new ingredients, scrap the things that taste weird and occasionally—magically—create something people fall in love with.

You’re not supposed to have it all figured out. You’re supposed to be trying. That’s what separates people who build something meaningful from people who just build something . . . standard.

So, here’s your permission slip:

Screw up.

Try weird ideas.

Hire someone with no résumé but all the fire.

Kill the process that everyone hates.

Launch the thing that scares you.

Be honest when it doesn’t work.

Adjust. Repeat. Keep going.

Because nothing great ever came from playing it safe in a spreadsheet. Everything great came from people who said, “Let’s try this and see what happens.”

So, yeah, everything is an experiment. Treat it that way. Laugh when it fails. Celebrate when it works. And never stop mixing the formula.

Because the second you stop experimenting, you stop evolving. And the second you stop evolving, your business flatlines into irrelevance right next to Blockbuster, fax machines and that time we all thought QR codes were dead.

Stay curious. Keep testing. Keep tweaking. Keep creating your own formula.

One day, you’ll look up and realize the formula you stumbled on works. And you’ll have done something that’s incredible.

Chad McMillan is a brand and marketing strategist who helps companies, from startups to Fortune 1000s, position themselves as industry disruptors. Formerly a VP and creative director at several top-tier agencies, he now leads X Agency, a firm he co-founded in Greenville, South Carolina. Chad is known for bold, unconventional strategies that drive growth and elevate brands. At home, he’s a husband and proud dad to twins who enjoys family time when he isn’t working. This article is adapted from his new book, Savage Standards: A Boundary-Setting Manifesto.