Concept
Ugly Baby
An ugly baby is Ed Catmull's name for a new idea in its earliest form (awkward, unfinished and easy to kill), and it needs protection long enough to grow, with each early failure read as information rather than a verdict.
In Creativity, Inc., written with Amy Wallace, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull insists that new ideas don't show up as small versions of the finished thing. They show up awkward and half-formed, barely hinting at what they could become. Even Pixar's most loved films spent years as confusing, flat or plainly bad versions before anyone outside the building saw them. The risk is that we compare a newborn idea with mature work, like last year's hit or a polished competitor, and kill it for not measuring up. Protecting it is not the same as praising it. Pixar's Braintrust gave blunt notes, but those notes were meant to help the film grow, not to rule on whether it deserved to exist. The core move is to separate the idea's current state from its potential. An early failure tells you what to fix, not whether to stop.
A real-life example
Daniel, a high-school history teacher, tries a unit where students produce short podcasts instead of essays. The first round is a mess. The audio is muddy, two groups just read their notes aloud, and a colleague suggests dropping the whole thing. Daniel doesn't judge the idea as a whole. He lists what failed: there was no script template and no model episode. He fixes those two things. By the third round, students who never spoke in class are interviewing their grandparents.
How to use it
- 1Set a protected window, such as four weeks or three attempts, before anyone, including you, makes a keep-or-kill decision.
- 2After each attempt, write down what failed and the one specific change it points to. That way the failure becomes a to-do item rather than a verdict.
- 3Ask for candid feedback from people whose job is to help the idea grow, and judge progress by direction, not polish.