There are many projects that start off with an inclination. It starts with, “We think this would be a great thing to build.” The problem is, there isn’t a clear product management process to prove that it fits a person’s need (check out this piece my team and I worked with Katie Cerar on). Rather, the best immediate next step is to put something out there and make something that people want.

These types of projects are incredibly experimental; in the business world, there’s a phrase for this: “Throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

That’s exactly how a lot of creative work is treated; publishing is a great example of this. Hugh MacLeod writes in Ignore Everybody, “Their business model is basically to throw all the pasta against the wall, and see which noodle sticks. The ones that fall to the floor are just forgotten.”

Here’s the thing: A lot of times, the spaghetti does not stick to the wall.

This happens for all sorts of reasons. Maybe the team didn’t decide what success looked like up front, so the vision wasn’t so clear. Maybe a team’s priorities shifted, and now the project looks less interesting. Maybe it’s more of a long-term brand play, and the business needs projects that can provide greater short-term, direct, ROI. Maybe the company hired a new executive to clean house, and they don’t appreciate creativity. Maybe the business didn’t hire a new executive, let itself get in terrible financial shape, and needs to make cuts in order to survive. 

All of this is reasonable, so long as that expectation is communicated clearly up front. It might sound something like, “We have very little certainty what we’re doing, we have no idea if it’ll drive revenue for our business, but we have a vague premise and it sounds nice, so let’s try a small bet. If you work full-time here you know it’s a risk.” 

Instead, what happens is full-time jobs posts are set up, people quit their previous full-time jobs to join, and executives get cold feet and can’t find a business reason to keep it moving so they lay people off. It’s an awful situation for team members to be in, and it’s become a very sad norm in the tech industry.

There are all sorts of implications here if you’re a practitioner. The main one is to accept reality, and to know that if you take on a full-time job in creative or experimental roles—I’m mainly thinking of content marketing and editing for businesses as I write this, though I’ve seen this happen with data analysts, directors of special projects, etc.—that you need to eat the risk and make a strong business case so that the unit becomes an essential marketing (or other functional) unit to the business. The attribution model is tight, and you show a clear positive ROI.

Belief will only go so long as an executive is bought in, and patience is a fickle virtue in business (even moreso in turbulence). This is actually really an art in itself, one more of business management than creativity.

The other is to appreciate that your bowl of spaghetti might not stick to the wall, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean you’re terrible at what you do, or that the world doesn’t respect your craft, or anything like that. It really just wasn’t a fit. Make sure you’re in a good position to throw another bowl for another company in the near future. I’ve met a lot of great editors and content marketers who work on more than one project at a time, even if one is a full-time assignment, because they understand this nature of their business.

There’s something more to be said about how we view outcomes, and that many companies would be well suited to invest more in serendipity. 

Sometimes, serendipity puts food—a lot of food—on the table. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

See also: All publications go to purgatory.