It can be, but there can be a skill component there as well. For example, you can look at current trends and made educated predictions that a new service might

It can be, but there can be a skill component there as well. For example, you can look at current trends and made educated predictions that a new service might be popular at a certain point in the future. Or you can keep up with the news and create products or content that ride on the coattails of current trends. That requires a certain amount of skill in spotting opportunities just before they arise. On the other hand, luck definitely plays a part none the less. As informed as your preidictions may be, the future is never exactly certain, and a situation which can rationally appear to be a sure in can turn out to go the complete opposite way. Maybe the service you want to replace actually isn't getting shut down when people think it is, and people decide your service isn't useful at that point in time. Or (like with a lot of Reddit alternatives) the mass exodus doesn't happen for whatever reason (maybe because the controversy affected far less people than you imagined it would) and hence the massive boom in users doesn't occur. It can also be the case that an opportunity is indeed there, but you're not going to be the one to take advantage of it. After all, I'm sure numerous social networks were around in the early days of Facebook, yet it's Facebook that became the household name and made billions of dollars. Perhaps your biggest competitor got a few million dollars in venture capital funding and managed to market themselves far better than you could. Luck and timing are closely connected, but they're not necessarily so.