By Brendan O’Meara
Breaking Bad had a niche audience through four seasons. It was a hyper-serialized show, perfect for binge watching…except binge watching wasn’t exactly a thing back in 2010, even 2011.
The show was critically acclaimed and doing its thing.
Then all four seasons were dumped on Netflix, which was starting to stream entire seasons of shows.
The Breaking Bad was “discovered,” and it blew up. It had one of the great final seasons and an audience hungry for what would happen.
The creators of the show could not have known that binge watching would be a thing. Breaking Bad happened to be perfectly suited for it when Netflix started streaming.
As good as Breaking Bad was, it needed luck to blast it out of the stratosphere.
But they weren’t waiting to make a good show as Netflix came along. They did the work, great work, and were ready for when the Netflix lightning strike came.
Point being, you need to be doing your thing and maybe, maybe, maybe, you’ll get lucky. But don’t expect it. Use obscurity to get great at your craft and when you’re good, maybe luck will be on your side and you’ll be ready for it.