Limiting the downside

Richard Branson always talks about limiting the downside with new business ventures. How can indie film apply that better?

My last post about validating ideas beforehand is one technique. Testing the market, crowdfunding to gauge interest, short films to experiment with themes and characters.

Those ideas are about limiting the downside for my personal investment of time and money in projects. A way to get quick feedback, which is immensely important for a new artist of any stripe - filmmaker, comedian, musician, DJ, painter.

Spending a year writing a script and then only getting feedback from industry "professionals" isn't the right way to do it.  You need feedback from the audience. Because industry professionals, have a track record of missing out on so many wonderful artists.

Just google "famous rejection letters"
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=famous%20rejection%20letters&es_th=1

You don't want your only feedback coming from gatekeepers. Audience feedback. Preferably paying audience member behavior (not opinion).