99% wasted

Yesterday we touched on how creative energy is 99% waste, in pursuit of the 1%.

I’ve been pondering those numbers since writing it, being reminded of Sahil Lavingia’s remark (paraphrasing from a video I don’t have a link to) that 99% of work on developing entrepreneurial projects is waste, too.

A number reflecting perhaps the number of ideas that will amount to little or nothing. Or the tests that will fail. Or the false-starts. Or the setbacks. Or the betrayals.

And yet the 1% is enough to make up for it all.

This is true of new ventures and new venture capital. It’s true of sketches for an animation and lines of code that will continue to be in production in five years. It’s true of the positive response rate you can expect to receive in your cold email campaign.

99% is wasted.

And it’s a worthy reminder to not stress about those setbacks, failures, false-starts or betrayals.

The 1% is worth it.