Same footage, one change, completely different outcome

Same footage, one change, completely different outcome
A short that flopped. Decent content, clean audio, sensible edit. It opened with the speaker framing the topic and explaining why it comes up so often.
One thing changed: the opening seconds were deleted and the video now started on the demonstration itself, mid-action. Same footage otherwise. Same caption. Same length minus the removed intro.
The second version held through the middle and got shared. The first did not.
The lesson is not "delete the first few seconds". It is that the opening was doing work for the creator rather than the viewer. It settled nerves, established context, eased into the topic. All comfort for the person recording.
Test it on your own archive: take three underperforming shorts, delete everything before the first concrete moment, repost. You will learn more from that than from a month of reading about hooks.
Your warm-up is not content.