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I created a successful side project back in 2014. It is still running and making 20 times more than I would get with a normal job. But i was lucky. Lucky to be

I created a successful side project back in 2014. It is still running and making 20 times more than I would get with a normal job. But i was lucky. Lucky to be born in a rich country. Lucky because I was given a computer at the age of 5. Lucky because I had unlimited education opportunities. Lucky because I had a friend who gave me access to something I needed for my business. And many other lucks. I will never deny that fact. But reading these stories makes me a bit angry, because it is just not that simple. It's always easy to translate a successful story into a guideline. But that guideline isn't worth anything when all those luck properties are different.

saagarjha 8y ago
What was your side project, if you don’t mind me asking?
arbuge 8y ago
In hindsight, all these stories seem to have a clear thread running through them which can be replicated by anyone with reasonable intelligence, drive, and time. In practice that particular thread likely required all kinds of environmental details to occur - details the entrepreneur might not have noticed at the time, might have forgotten about later, or might be discounting as unimportant.
- tachyonbeam 8y ago
  One of the things that helps the most, it seems to me, is having the self-confidence to take the risk. You also have to be motivated enough and in good enough health (eg: not burnt out) to be able to work on this side-project after your job. Then of course you need the right skills, the right timing, and the free time and financial resources to execute your plan. However, at the end of the day, you are taking a risk, it's a gamble. What stops most people is the fear of failure. This fear isn't necessarily unwarranted. As the author points out, he has a previous failed startup. Most people don't have the drive to work hundreds of hours after work and possibly invest their own hard earned cash in a project they suspect deep down might not actually pan out. I know I find it difficult. Still, I don't dislike these stories. It's good if it inspires people to take (calculated) risks, and it is possible to learn from failures. Though I would also say that yeah, there's probably some self-selection going on. The people out there with 2 or 3 failed attempts at monetizing side-projects probably don't feel super eager to write a blog post and tell us all how we can improve our lives by following in their footsteps.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  It’s immensely easier with hindsight. Everything’s laid out right in front of people. This is like a sports fan sitting at home saying, “How could they miss that? I could see it right here. Even I could do that.” The difficulty is deceiving when it’s all seeing and no doing.
- jlawson 8y ago
  It's totally true that there are lots of people in the world who don't have the circumstances to make a business like this happen right now. But there are many, many people who do have the circumstances to make it happen, and who would benefit from it, but who make wrong choices and waste their time elsewhere. Those are the people who the article is intended for. Speaking more broadly - The fact that this business strategy isn't immediately available to every person on Earth doesn't seem that fruitful of a point to make. Why does this come up every time someone posts about anyone doing anything entrepreneurial and succeeding? What is the message for disadvantaged people in our society? "You have no chance of succeeding because of your circumstances; give up now"? Somehow, this external-locus-of-control [0] viewpoint seems very attractive to people to the point that they actually want to spread it memetically. And yet it's been pretty well demonstrated that this style of thinking is actually harmful to people to who engage in it. Even for many of the people who can't immediately carry out a strategy like that in the blog post - many of them could, with some time and preparatory action, get themselves into a position where it's possible. Consider someone who lacks skills, connections, and experience. They cannot reasonably expected to start a company right there and then. They can be expected to get a job, spend a few years getting experience and connections, move up a rung or two, then perhaps quit and go entrepreneurial. If that's out of the cards, they can likely study to move towards the point where getting a job in the target field is feasible. Yes, there are people who are so downtrodden that they can't even take steps towards getting into a position where they can do better. And some people won't get all the rewards they deserve, in some moral sense. But the great majority of people can do something to improve their lot, even if it isn't exactly like what goes on in this blog post. Even consider the author of the post - he didn't just start this business from college; his success here depended on the years of work he did before and the connections and experience he built from that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
MuffinFlavored 8y ago
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the bigdogs back in the day (~10 years ago maybe?) and gained momentum. He refused to admit to me that he was lucky. He refused to admit that he had the right idea at the right time. Was his execution great? You bet. Good marketing/product advertising/images/pivoting/getting through hardships/blah blah blah. But like... he couldn't do again if he had to start from scratch in 2019. Things are different. And he refused to acknowledge that. He wanted to believe everything he did was perfect and he got his wealth purely from skill. I think that's a bad trait :(
- usaphp 8y ago
  > He wanted to believe everything he did was perfect and he got his wealth purely from skill He did, his skill was to get on it at a right time in a right place. His skill was to keep working on it and believing in himself. Saying it was due to luck is just pure disrespect.
  - lifeformed 8y ago
    It's both - if he didn't have his skills, he wouldn't succeed either. But for him to deny that luck played any role is naive. We should work our hardest so we're ready to shine when the opportunity comes, but we need to remain humble because not everyone gets the same opportunities.
    - lowercased 8y ago
      he had the skill to be born a man of a certain to certain parents in, i'm assuming here, was a western country in the last 60 years or so. a less skilled person would have been born a farm worker 3000 years ago.
- Wistar 8y ago
white-flame 8y ago
Many millions of people (or more) have the same lucky factors that you list, and don't have the same success. Hence, those might not have been the most critical factors.
Sharma 8y ago
Speaking of luck, this article was on front page sometime ago and had lot of good things about how to attract good luck. The key to good luck is an open mind - [http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind] So luck can be a factor, but may be that also could be a trait?
wildermuthn 8y ago
A lot of comments here about “luck” ignore the essential nature of it: its subjectivity. Objectively, there is no such thing as luck, but only circumstance. Circumstance can certainly be beyond our control. Luck, however, is our subjective interpretation of circumstance, and is very much within our power to control. Are you lucky or unlucky? Are your circumstances lucky or unlucky? Your answer to that question doesn’t impact your circumstances — what happens to you — but it does significantly impact your mindset and behavior — what you make happen. A person who believes in bad luck is disempowering themselves. A person who believes in good luck does the opposite: priming themselves to see patterns of opportunity where the unlucky brain sees patterns of obstacles. Do these beliefs change anything about the real opportunities or obstacles that come our way? Not one bit. But beliefs dramatically affect what we see and what we do. Having said that, in my case I am special. I actually am objectively the luckiest person I’ve ever met.
- wildermuthn 8y ago
  My last sentence was (I hope) obvious as tongue-in-cheek: I try to cultivate a mindset that sees opportunity, and telling myself I am lucky is a good hack for that. But I have a good example and anecdote here. I used to work at a startup that went from 60 million views a month to a few billion (Facebook videos). Some people would say, “you were just at the right place at the right time, when Facebook decided to promote video.” That’s true, for sure. However, the right way to describe it is, “I am a really lucky guy. If it hadn’t been Facebook promoting video, it would have been some other lucky break.” Another anecdote: divorce. Whenever I encounter a thought that starts to resemble self-pity, I remember how lucky I am, and that for the next three days, instead of sulking to myself about not seeing my kids, I actually have something most parents never get: three days of distraction-free time to work on a product that I believe will change the world. Perhaps I’m deluding myself? There’s no perhaps. I am most definitely deluding myself. But some delusions can help. Being lucky is definitely one of them, with perhaps one additional caveat: that being lucky doesn’t mean I win lottery tickets. It means if I never give up, and I work as insanely hard as possible, and have the humility to change as circumstances dictate, that my good luck ensures I can’t lose. Oddly enough, it is my belief in luck that encourages me to never stop looking for it to be realized. Pretty silly, but it works for me!
eruci 8y ago
But it has to be more than just luck. Many kids get computers at the age of 5, have lots of educational opportunities, etc. Very few do what you did. I agree that a "guideline" like this is not worth much. It probably takes some luck and a lot of skill..
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

saagarjha 8y ago

What was your side project, if you don’t mind me asking?

arbuge 8y ago

In hindsight, all these stories seem to have a clear thread running through them which can be replicated by anyone with reasonable intelligence, drive, and time. In practice that particular thread likely required all kinds of environmental details to occur - details the entrepreneur might not have noticed at the time, might have forgotten about later, or might be discounting as unimportant.

tachyonbeam 8y ago
One of the things that helps the most, it seems to me, is having the self-confidence to take the risk. You also have to be motivated enough and in good enough health (eg: not burnt out) to be able to work on this side-project after your job. Then of course you need the right skills, the right timing, and the free time and financial resources to execute your plan. However, at the end of the day, you are taking a risk, it's a gamble. What stops most people is the fear of failure. This fear isn't necessarily unwarranted. As the author points out, he has a previous failed startup. Most people don't have the drive to work hundreds of hours after work and possibly invest their own hard earned cash in a project they suspect deep down might not actually pan out. I know I find it difficult. Still, I don't dislike these stories. It's good if it inspires people to take (calculated) risks, and it is possible to learn from failures. Though I would also say that yeah, there's probably some self-selection going on. The people out there with 2 or 3 failed attempts at monetizing side-projects probably don't feel super eager to write a blog post and tell us all how we can improve our lives by following in their footsteps.
siruncledrew 8y ago
It’s immensely easier with hindsight. Everything’s laid out right in front of people. This is like a sports fan sitting at home saying, “How could they miss that? I could see it right here. Even I could do that.” The difficulty is deceiving when it’s all seeing and no doing.
jlawson 8y ago
It's totally true that there are lots of people in the world who don't have the circumstances to make a business like this happen right now. But there are many, many people who do have the circumstances to make it happen, and who would benefit from it, but who make wrong choices and waste their time elsewhere. Those are the people who the article is intended for. Speaking more broadly - The fact that this business strategy isn't immediately available to every person on Earth doesn't seem that fruitful of a point to make. Why does this come up every time someone posts about anyone doing anything entrepreneurial and succeeding? What is the message for disadvantaged people in our society? "You have no chance of succeeding because of your circumstances; give up now"? Somehow, this external-locus-of-control [0] viewpoint seems very attractive to people to the point that they actually want to spread it memetically. And yet it's been pretty well demonstrated that this style of thinking is actually harmful to people to who engage in it. Even for many of the people who can't immediately carry out a strategy like that in the blog post - many of them could, with some time and preparatory action, get themselves into a position where it's possible. Consider someone who lacks skills, connections, and experience. They cannot reasonably expected to start a company right there and then. They can be expected to get a job, spend a few years getting experience and connections, move up a rung or two, then perhaps quit and go entrepreneurial. If that's out of the cards, they can likely study to move towards the point where getting a job in the target field is feasible. Yes, there are people who are so downtrodden that they can't even take steps towards getting into a position where they can do better. And some people won't get all the rewards they deserve, in some moral sense. But the great majority of people can do something to improve their lot, even if it isn't exactly like what goes on in this blog post. Even consider the author of the post - he didn't just start this business from college; his success here depended on the years of work he did before and the connections and experience he built from that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

MuffinFlavored 8y ago

I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the bigdogs back in the day (~10 years ago maybe?) and gained momentum. He refused to admit to me that he was lucky. He refused to admit that he had the right idea at the right time. Was his execution great? You bet. Good marketing/product advertising/images/pivoting/getting through hardships/blah blah blah. But like... he couldn't do again if he had to start from scratch in 2019. Things are different. And he refused to acknowledge that. He wanted to believe everything he did was perfect and he got his wealth purely from skill. I think that's a bad trait :(

usaphp 8y ago
> He wanted to believe everything he did was perfect and he got his wealth purely from skill He did, his skill was to get on it at a right time in a right place. His skill was to keep working on it and believing in himself. Saying it was due to luck is just pure disrespect.
- lifeformed 8y ago
  It's both - if he didn't have his skills, he wouldn't succeed either. But for him to deny that luck played any role is naive. We should work our hardest so we're ready to shine when the opportunity comes, but we need to remain humble because not everyone gets the same opportunities.
  - lowercased 8y ago
    he had the skill to be born a man of a certain to certain parents in, i'm assuming here, was a western country in the last 60 years or so. a less skilled person would have been born a farm worker 3000 years ago.
Wistar 8y ago

white-flame 8y ago

Many millions of people (or more) have the same lucky factors that you list, and don't have the same success. Hence, those might not have been the most critical factors.

Sharma 8y ago

Speaking of luck, this article was on front page sometime ago and had lot of good things about how to attract good luck. The key to good luck is an open mind - [http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind] So luck can be a factor, but may be that also could be a trait?

wildermuthn 8y ago

A lot of comments here about “luck” ignore the essential nature of it: its subjectivity. Objectively, there is no such thing as luck, but only circumstance. Circumstance can certainly be beyond our control. Luck, however, is our subjective interpretation of circumstance, and is very much within our power to control. Are you lucky or unlucky? Are your circumstances lucky or unlucky? Your answer to that question doesn’t impact your circumstances — what happens to you — but it does significantly impact your mindset and behavior — what you make happen. A person who believes in bad luck is disempowering themselves. A person who believes in good luck does the opposite: priming themselves to see patterns of opportunity where the unlucky brain sees patterns of obstacles. Do these beliefs change anything about the real opportunities or obstacles that come our way? Not one bit. But beliefs dramatically affect what we see and what we do. Having said that, in my case I am special. I actually am objectively the luckiest person I’ve ever met.

wildermuthn 8y ago
My last sentence was (I hope) obvious as tongue-in-cheek: I try to cultivate a mindset that sees opportunity, and telling myself I am lucky is a good hack for that. But I have a good example and anecdote here. I used to work at a startup that went from 60 million views a month to a few billion (Facebook videos). Some people would say, “you were just at the right place at the right time, when Facebook decided to promote video.” That’s true, for sure. However, the right way to describe it is, “I am a really lucky guy. If it hadn’t been Facebook promoting video, it would have been some other lucky break.” Another anecdote: divorce. Whenever I encounter a thought that starts to resemble self-pity, I remember how lucky I am, and that for the next three days, instead of sulking to myself about not seeing my kids, I actually have something most parents never get: three days of distraction-free time to work on a product that I believe will change the world. Perhaps I’m deluding myself? There’s no perhaps. I am most definitely deluding myself. But some delusions can help. Being lucky is definitely one of them, with perhaps one additional caveat: that being lucky doesn’t mean I win lottery tickets. It means if I never give up, and I work as insanely hard as possible, and have the humility to change as circumstances dictate, that my good luck ensures I can’t lose. Oddly enough, it is my belief in luck that encourages me to never stop looking for it to be realized. Pretty silly, but it works for me!

eruci 8y ago

But it has to be more than just luck. Many kids get computers at the age of 5, have lots of educational opportunities, etc. Very few do what you did. I agree that a "guideline" like this is not worth much. It probably takes some luck and a lot of skill..

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]