Use backups to protect against total failure

This morning I saw that something tore out my baby walking stick kale. This was one of the main plants I was looking forward to growing this year.

Its stem was pulled out of the ground and picked clean of leaves.

It sucks, but I had the foresight to have backups ready to go.

I started nine seeds, three grew up into seedlings, and of those I planted this one. The other two I set aside for backups or for a neighborhood plant swap this weekend.

Having those backups will turn a total loss into just a setback.

Sometimes business ideas or marketing campaigns fail. You put effort into them and they don't produce results or they produce the wrong kind of results.

As long as you're tracking the results (with something like Repeat Customer Insights) and you're confident they are correct, you can always swap in a backup. Bring in a different campaign, try a different product idea, etc. That's basically what A/B testing is but you're running your backup (control) at the same time as a new experiment.

And if this next kale dies too, I have more seeds I can start. One will grow and survive eventually.

Eric Davis