What if successful startups are just lucky? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#121

Post by Mithaldu » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:21 PM UTC

EricDeb wrote: post #83

Obviously successful startups are lucky. I think the idea of releasing quickly/efficiently is to test the market to see if a larger, more complex product is desired (IOW can you get lucky?). In the example provided, a beta release of one level of Ryzom could have saved years of dev time if it was not well received.

They did a beta release. People loved it. Then they did a massive change to XP distribution shortly before release that forced people to run in single squads, because experience couldn't be shared among multiple squads cooperating anymore. People hated it. Nevrax didn't give a fuck and released anyhow.

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#122

Post by MichaelGG » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

FD3SA wrote: post #63

One important point to realize for the author is that games are not services, they are works of art. As such, you can't say this is an incredible game with the same objectivity as this is an incredible service . Ryzom was a great game, but MMOs are built on one thing: atmosphere. Blizzard made WoW precisely because WarCraft was its longest running and most popular brand to date. Blizzard already had a massive fan bas…

>Don't regret making works of art. It is all that succeeds us when we leave this realm.

Scientific discoveries also persist after your death. While making art is fine, it's hardly the only thing that people are known for.

On top of that, practically any action can leave a lasting impact, even terrible ones. So "effects persisting after you die" isn't really a way to determine value of your actions.

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#123

Post by devgutt » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

I think that it is some misunderstanding between be successful and have money. Money is the consequence, but the objective of a business should be create real value. In this sense, if you have only a few customers but you are delivering real value, you are successful. Take youtube, for example. They were a very successful company in the beginning, delivering a delightful experience. Now, if you consider money as objective, they are still successful, but they are not. They now deliver a awful experience, with Ads in the beginning, middle and the end of each video. For me, no matter how much money they are making, they just not successful anymore.

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#124

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #105

dllthomas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what "no statistical significance" means.

Sorry, statistically speaking the difference in results of interviewing and not interviewing are insignificant. I have a feeling that eventually there will be a Vangaurd of startups that will massively outperform traditional VC/incubators due to reduced management fees similar to index funds vs. regular funds.

On the one hand, it's probably true that experts overweight their own ability to pick winners. My guess is, PG is likely overestimating the ability of YC staff to actually identify good patterns simply because it's easy to draw conclusions from just a few datapoints but it's hard to draw statistically significant conclusions that hold up out of sample. However, I doubt that a startup index fund will outperform the best VCs and incubators simply because good deal flow is key, whereas in publicly traded markets, everyone has access to all deals. Having said that, I have no doubt that a VC index fund would outperform many of the VCs that are not that good

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#125

Post by MichaelGG » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

tomasien wrote: post #8

jxf wrote: post #4

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson (apocryphal; see [0]) [0]: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/i-am...

Bizarre - the last link I was on was a random ESPN quiz with UVa star Joe Harris in which that quote was one of the questions. (I realize this is a pretty meaningless and useless comment, but seeing this quote 2 times in less than 10 seconds was too much not to mention).

Is it bizarre? Given the number of people on HN, the number of things you're likely to read -- it seems inevitable that "bizarre" coincidences will certainly happen.

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#126

Post by jayd16 » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #100

nwhitehead wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also accept groups with good interviews in the experiment batch, but not include them in the experiment.

But then they're effectively excluding the best-interviewing groups from the random experiment.

Can't you pick the best interviews, then hold your experiment with random groups as long as you mix in a the data from the interview groups in such a way to build a representative sample?

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#127

Post by kevando » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #71

All successful startups are lucky, but they're never just lucky. If they were, we could save ourselves a lot of work reading applications and doing interviews. We could just pick randomly instead. If we did that for one batch, you'd really be able to tell the difference, believe me.

So you're saying my app that helps hamsters connect via foursquare has a chance?

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#128

Post by csense » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #114

jxf wrote: post #4

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson (apocryphal; see [0]) [0]: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/i-am...

They wait for IT to come. I became IT.

You turned into a Segway?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_PT#Early_history_and_pre...

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#129

Post by sien » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 10:18 PM UTC

kristofferR wrote: post #36

jxf wrote: post #4

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson (apocryphal; see [0]) [0]: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/i-am...

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. – Seneca Fools wait for a lucky day but every day is a lucky day for an industrious man. – Buddha

Critics said he won many battles simply because of luck; Napoleon responded, "Give me lucky generals," aware that "luck" comes to leaders who recognize opportunity, and seize it.

(wikipedia - Napoleon)

Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?

#130

Post by Sakes » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

kansface wrote: post #106

Sakes wrote: post #70

I used to think I was really smart and that my intelligence would carry me when I finally set out to start a company. Wrong, while I still consider myself to be smart, I don't think I'm savvy enough to rely upon good decisions to carry me. There are plenty of people smarter than me that have failed in their ventures. So, I've reverted to a brute force strategy coupled with an unrelenting resolve to see projects to co…

You missed the point of the article. Ultimately, the universe is unfair. No special insight, ability, breakthrough, or perseverance is sufficient to change that.

I didn't say anything about fair. I didn't even say that you don't need luck. I believe you do need luck. But, you can remove a lot of your dependence on luck by getting better at the game over time, as well as by playing a lot. Just ask anyone that plays Texas Hold'em.

Want to score more? Get your number of shots on goal up. Luck is just the positive result of chance being realized. Chance to succeed vs chance to fail. So as long as you don't care about the number of failures you stack up, you just keep rolling the dice until you succeed.

Perseverance is sufficient as long as it is accompanied by adaptability. You simply need the ability to recognize your strengths/weaknesses/personality type and play the game accordingly. Either invest in improving your weaknesses, or spend time networking to find a partner to complement them. Even better, pick an idea where your weaknesses will not be a factor.

What makes startups so hard is all the opportunities to fail that come along as you try and build something new. Every month, or every week, there is a new thing that wants to kill you. Sometimes these things have nothing to with the company. But, there are sooo many ways to mitigate these problems and you learn how to do so better and better the longer you play the game.

If you'd like me to go into some more personal details to show some examples, just let me know.

Edited: minor edits.