What Leaf Insects Teach Us About Business

How can you improve business decisions using the simple trial-and-error method?

Leaf insects have evolved camouflage that helps them avoid predators. How did nature accomplish this creative endeavour? The answer is natural selection, a mechanism of evolution we can usefully compare to trial and error. Inherited traits that help organisms survive and reproduce in a particular environment can become more common over generations. UC Berkeley's explanation of natural selection sets out this process.

Imagine an ancestral population with inherited differences in colour and shape. Individuals that resembled the surrounding leaves would be harder for predators to spot and more likely to survive and reproduce. Their offspring could inherit those advantages. Over many generations, small differences could produce an increasingly convincing resemblance to a leaf.

The insects did not need to know what a leaf looked like. The environment did the selecting. There is a useful parallel in business: produce variations, test them, and give the promising ones another chance. The difference is that you can deliberately design alternatives and choose what success means. That makes the quality of your test as important as the variety of your ideas.

Apply these three steps to your business:

Production & Variation

The first step is to produce variations you can put to the test. For example, if you run an advertising campaign, create ten different ads with different features. If you are an author, try different openings. If you are a start-up founder, try different pitches. If you are still trying to figure out your passion, explore different jobs or hobbies through small commitments. If you are trying to make money, explore different ideas before committing to one. Give each variation a reason to exist. Ten cosmetic variations may tell you less than two that test different assumptions.

Selection & Feedback

Now it is time to test your ideas in the real world and gather feedback. Once you have enough evidence, weed out the weak. Choose the advertisement that brings in customers at a cost the business can sustain. Choose the draft that communicates your idea most effectively. Choose the pitch that turns interest into a concrete next step. Choose the hobby that is bringing you the most joy. And pick the business idea that shows promise after you account for the time and money it takes.

Be careful what you select for. An ad that gets clicks without sales may be winning the wrong contest. Decide what matters before you look at the results. Compare alternatives under similar conditions where possible, and look for enough observations to avoid mistaking a lucky result for a reliable advantage.

Survival & Adaptation

By this stage, you could be in the process of creating your next captivating ad, your best piece of writing, or the next leaf insect, if you will. Now, let the idea stand the test of time. It is not the end of the process yet. Keep what works, make further variations, and test them against the current version. Record what changed and why, so the next round builds on the last one. What succeeds in one environment may struggle when the environment changes.

Innovation is difficult to plan in advance. If a simple guideline guaranteed a successful business, far fewer businesses would fail. Progress depends in part on people willing to risk being wrong, examine the result, and try again with a better idea. The next time you wonder whether your next move is right or wrong, remember that being wrong can still teach you something, provided the cost is manageable and you pay attention to the result. Produce multiple variations, eradicate the worst, and let the best survive and reproduce.