Luck in Startup Success

IMO the bigger the success, the bigger the influence of luck. If you have a good idea, are talented and work hard, then you're very unlikely to fail completely. But no amount of good ideas, talent or hard work can ensure that you'll be the next Google.

It's a lottery.I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of what makes someone succeed where others fail. There is an element of luck involved, but you can greatly improve your chances by doing things like working hard, understanding the problem you're solving, really talking to your customers, getting a mentor, saying no to distractions, etc. Those things wouldn't have any impact if it really was a lottery.

Watch this video:https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4ITalent and hard work is not responsible for successful moonshots. They are often the prerequisites. But the ultimate disproportional success is achieved through sheer luck.You might get lucky yourself or you might not. But it shouldn't make you feel any worse about yourself than hearing that your friend won the lottery, if you buy a ticket every now a

This one drives me crazy. Sure, you have to be good and smart and you have to hustle, but you also have to be lucky, and luck is a bigger factor than anyone likes to admit. People who make it big forget the luck aspect and start believing that because it worked, they did everything right. They then go around dispensing questionable advice on the basis of 'it worked for them' while knowing full well that they're a massive outlier.It's like when old successful people give &q

I agree it is this,I also think people and society also give themselves way too much credit for their successes. There's plenty of smart hardworking people out there who continue to contribute but never stumble upon a unicorn. To a large extent its luck, a much larger contributor than people realize. All you can do is to play the game, consistently contribute and work hard on R&D and products and you improve your odds of stumbling upon success. But it's never guaranteed.

This is what people call "luck" when talking about successful startups. Unfortunately some people are just more "lucky" than others :)

I would say "partly" rather than "largely". I think the reason luck seems to be such a significant factor is that everything else that depends on your idea, execution, networking, and so on are all tough, and exceptionally so en masse.So, to minimise the impact of luck, you'd need to hit home runs in every other aspect which is unlikely. If your idea is great, but the rest so-so, then luck might seem like a stronger factor, and that's the sort of situation most o

Luck is a big factor in the success of startups, but it is not the only factor. E.g. Jeff Bezos is lucky, but he's not merely lucky.

Not really. That’s a definition of survivorship bias. The answer many times comes down to luck.https://theconversation.com/huge-success-in-business-is-larg...

Hard work and talent are related to success. But when the outcome is "become the richest person in the world", hard work and talent are a rounding error compared to luck. Does anybody really think Zuckerberg is even in the top 5% hardest working or talented people in the world? A decision as inconsequential as rewriting Facebook to a different language in the early days could have derailed the entire enterprise. There is a lot of luck involved.