It’s always smart, before starting any collaboration, to ask yourself, “What are their incentives and the timelines of their incentives? How do they measure ‘success’? Are we aligned?” Don’t make short-term all-or-nothing bets on gimmicks, if you’re playing the long game. There will often be pressure from people who are thinking about a promotion next quarter, not your career in 1 to 10 years. @mikeshinoda shared a story about advice Linkin Park got from their label in the very beginning: “And they tell us things like, ‘Well, you guys need a gimmick. We want to dress Joe in a lab coat and a cowboy hat. And Chester, you should kick a shoe off at every show.’ It was stupid record-company stuff that sounds like something out of a movie like This Is Spinal Tap. But it was absolutely true, and these were real suggestions. I imagine that if you [reminded them now] they’d say, ‘Oh, no, I was totally joking.’ I assure you they were not joking.” The band agreed amongst themselves to stick to their guns, and they offered their label two choices: shelve us, or let us do what we know how to do. It worked. I’ve “missed” many great financial opportunities predicated on gimmicks. As Thomas Huxley famously said, “It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.” If you’re good, you’ll have more than one chance.