I think luck is a trivial factor in a startups success if you're smart. If you think about success more reductively, and ask yourself "what has to happen for me to succeed?" and "can I accomplish those things?", you'll see that luck isn't too big a factor. I wrote an article that talks about this: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/cd29597704f9.
What if successful startups are just lucky?
181–183 of 183 posts
Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?
#182Honestly, this is poorly written. The author ends up giving advice even though he starts out claiming that is a problematic thing to do. His advice is not so different from common startup knowledge-- success is proportional to the number of swings of the bat. That I think any founder can take to the bank. It is true regardless of what your personal situation is. Obeying a simulated annealing algorithm rapidly through life keeps you from looking too far ahead and from getting stuck in ruts. There are many other generalizations largely independent of your personal story that are very helpful.
Re: What if successful startups are just lucky?
#183All 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.
All you stat nerds keep on talking about statistical significance. While you are busy waving your hands, PG will keep raking in millions.
"Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."