The 1-10-100 rule

“Your first time is going to suck, so if it’s important get it done and out of the way so you can move towards the fifth, tenth, and hundredth time.”

• Noah Kagan

Let’s pretend you want to learn archery.

Your partner is a LARPer (that’s Live Action Role Playing for you jocks) and you decide it would be cool to traipse around the forest nocking arrows like Robin Hood.

You are a complete beginner. You know your ability is going to suck for quite a while.

Good kit, targets, and practice with thousands of arrows to get closer to becoming the best archer in Nottingham Forest.

This makes sense. We understand it takes a while to move from beginner, to journeyman, to master.

This applies to all disciplines.

Yet when people add a computer, a search engine, and the term “digital marketing” all hell breaks loose.

People expect things to work from the start.

They are not prepared for frustration, mistakes, or things looking ridiculous. So they tap out, flame out, waste money, or get out.

Your first concept is the 1-10-100 rule.

There is infinite things you can do, they all have a learning curve, and you’re going to learn nearly nothing on your first pass.

So the only thing you need to do is do it first.

That’s it.

Do your first go.

Then spend your next nine turns refining what you did and getting feedback.

Getting it is simple:

• Did it come out as you expected?
• Did it look like you expected it to?
• Does it sound okay?
• Did anything else happen?

After 10 times, your 10th go is going to look better than your 1st by a long margin.

You will have a sense of whether you can do it, and whether it’s working and can be improved.

By now your effort should come out as you expect, looks as you expect, and sounds okay.

So you ask the question -

• Did anything else happen?

If it seems worthwhile, do it 100 times.

The improvements you will see from 10 to 100 is where magic starts to happen.

1-10-100.

Don’t overthink it, just punch out the first effort, move to your 10th effort, notice what’s working, and burn towards the 100.