My wife and I watched the pilot episode of The Office the other day.
It was funny . . . really funny.
I remember watching the pilot in 2005 when it first aired.
I didn’t laugh.
It wasn’t funny to me.
I didn’t get it . . . yet.
That first episode had all the elements that made the show great, but it was so different from everything else on TV at the time.
Sure, there were mockumentaries before The Office. It wasn’t a new genre, but it hadn’t been done quite like this before in the U.S.
NBC and the producers took a chance on the show. They were willing to fail miserably with a six-episode experiment.
It worked in the U.K., but could the show work in primetime TV in the U.S.?
Yes it did.
The lesson for artists and entrepreneurs:
Your idea may be new and different from what is popular today. Don’t let that stop you from trying something new.
