How to Run Effective Creative Experiments

I’m not a chemist, but I do love running experiments. Creative experiments that is. Creative experiments provide a framework for testing new ideas while minimizing risk. This year I’ll be testing some new ideas to discover what resonates with my audience, and what I can create a system around to grow and scale if they work. The key to running useful experiments is having a clear structure:

• Research what’s working well for other creators. - How can you apply that to what you do and add your own sauce to it?

• Define how the experiment aligns with your goals - What do you want to happen?

• Identify success metrics - How will you measure results?

• Set a timeframe - When will you evaluate the experiment?

• Document everything - Track what works and what doesn't

• Bonus: build in public and share your experiment results. Even if they don’t work out how you think they’ll work, sharing in public helps you more than it hurts you.

By approaching your creative business growth through experimentation, you can make data-driven decisions while still embracing creativity and innovation. Structure isn’t boring – it gives you guardrails to see what works best for you. Here are the experiments I'm planning to run in 2025 to grow my creative business:

• I’m launching a new podcast. I’m excited to launch the podcast for Melanin MVP and test solo videos on that YouTube channel. This podcast will be a part of a podcast network, so I’m excited to share my experience with that as well.

  • Goal: Grow a women’s sports media brand I’m proud of.

• Daily podcast challenge in February. I want to expand upon the format of Honey & Hustle. I think we’ve nailed the interview format, and I want to experiment with different types of solo episodes and different formats for hosted videos. Posting daily in my RSS feed for Black History Month feels like a nice challenge 1 year after the launch of season 4 and a great way to test different topics and formats to see what people engage with the most.

  • Goal: Grow my audio downloads to 20K.

P.S. In case you missed it, I shared a resource for planning your best year yet in my previous article. It’s a completely free Notion template I created. There are also 9 tips to get you started + 3 newsletters written on beehiiv that might be helpful.

Can't get enough of Please Hustle Responsibly?