Hard work wins in business (a.k.a. it ain't just about luck)

says every 'successful' business person, company owner, shareholder, etc.

No doubt hard work is a major, or even necessary, factor; when you work hard, you create a much larger surface area for luck, and also capitalize on whatever luck does hit you.

But let's not pretend.

Many people work hard, much harder than many entrepreneurs, and still barely scrape by. There was an article here about UBI that mentioned someone working as a cook (notoriously hard work and long hours), but who was living in his car in the parking lot, unable to afford rent. What kind of system is that?

Also there's rather more motivation to work hard when you're effectively getting $1000's per hour as a company owner vs $2.75 or whatever minimum wage works out as, factoring in benefit cuts as a result of employment.

And BTW I don't think it's only 'pure' luck as most people conceive - it's about stumbling on those gaps and loopholes in the system, or that your father happens to know a guy researching an algorithm that would give your SaaS a winning edge, etc, etc, so a good part of 'luck' boils down to socioeconomic privilege.

The two most important factors that determine whether a business will succeed are good decision-making and capital.

For example, if you'd had enough cash to finance three years of operating at a loss, your business probably could have survived Covid.

That's how many businesses survived Covid: they had a lot of cash in the bank, and they made the good decision of cutting costs to the bone until demand returned.

There are a hundred little decisions that need to be made wisely, and the businesses that fail are usually the ones that made the wrong choices. Anything that affects margins or your competitive advantage is a huge deal. Smart accounting is the backbone of any business that's built to last.

What type of business to start, of course, is one of those key decisions.

Hard work is remarkably ineffective at moving the needle once you scale up a bit. That doesn't mean you don't have to work hard, you still do, actually when you have something good going on, you tend to realize that you'd be an idiot to screw it up through laziness.

But you only have to hit about a dozen employees to be at the threshold where your personal time makes little difference beyond maybe a few key accounts or something. What will make the difference in the long run is the systems you put in place, which of course comes down to some very nuanced decision-making.

Luck, well of course it helps, until it doesn't, no one's lucky forever.

So I maintain that the name of the game is making consistently good decisions and having access to enough cash to weather any storm.

I feel like we, humans, have some repulsion towards "getting lucky". It's seen as a discredit of our hard work, and yet, I think luck plays way bigger role. And it's spread across the board starting from the type of community you are born into, the education you get, the access to connection you and/or your family has, the money, etc.

It doesn't mean that it's only luck. As I said, you can get lucky a thousand time but if you didn't prepare for it, then it's not worth it. This is why consistency is important.

Doing something after failing multiple times can be hard work.