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Here's the raw truth that no one in the valley will admit. It's about two things: 1. Execution. 2. Luck. ... but it's mostly execution. If you have a BRILL
by burtonator 7y ago
Here's the raw truth that no one in the valley will admit.
It's about two things:
1. Execution.
2. Luck.
... but it's mostly execution.
If you have a BRILLIANT idea but can't execute you're dead.
There are tons of companies in the history books as examples.
BUT... if you can EXECUTE, you can take a shitty idea, abandon it, pivot, measure, and focus BACK on a good idea. Then when you have a good idea you can keep executing it forward.
The rest of luck but this can be worked on as luck is often timing + being prepared.
- peterwwillis 7y agoYeah, but you could say that about the entire universe. It's all execution and randomness.
- rockinghigh 7y agoI wonder where you got the idea that no one will admit this. Execution is the number one priority of founders of early stage companies: finding people who can quickly turn their idea into a working product they can iterate on.
- MegaButts 7y agoI strongly disagree that execution matters more than luck. I ask myself would I rather be good or lucky, and I will always choose luck. Because no matter how good you are, if luck isn't on your side you're going to lose. You might be the better programmer, but you still didn't get the job. You might have the better proposal, but you still lost the bid. You might be the better candidate, but you still lost the election. You might have a better product, but your company still failed. You might eat right and exercise, but you still got cancer. I see this regularly play out when founders who found success on their first startups attempt to repeat it, only to fail miserably. Granted, there are a handful who manage to duplicate their success, but I know that some of these are simply due to who you know from their first success (you could argue that's better execution, but the number of unicorns I know that wouldn't exist if it weren't for a lucky break from an investor previously befriended makes me think otherwise). I do not mean to belittle the hard work and brilliance of many successful founders, only to emphasize that luck was absolutely critical in nearly every success story. Obviously it's better to have both, but pretending that you can outmaneuver the universe is an act of hubris. I think people pontificating that execution matters more than luck are too arrogant to realize how lucky they are, or want to believe it matters more because it's reassuring to believe that we are in control of our destinies. There are things you can do to increase your exposure to luck, but it's ultimately something beyond your control. The world isn't meritocratic.
- ausjke 7y ago"I am a strong believer in lucks, as I know the harder you work, the more luck you will get".
- bartimus 7y agoTo get lucky is something different from being a person who "has luck". The latter doesn't exist. Unless you believe in supernatural things. Everyone has the same chance to get lucky. You can position yourself to optimize your chances. The question remains if you have the necessary abilities to take advantage of it.
- MegaButts 7y agoLuck is random. Nobody has luck, but the guy who won the lottery got lucky.
- drewmassey 7y agoI don’t remember if it was chess or tennis or something else: “The good player is always lucky.”
- azinman2 7y agoYou forgot timing, which is critically important.
- MegaButts 7y agoHow is timing different from luck? If you can predict the correct timing, it's just better execution. If you can't predict the correct timing, it's just luck.
- azinman2 7y agoLuck means you landed a big client because they just happened to be in litigation with a competitor, or the NYTimes wrote about you because you happened to run into a reporter at the airport, and that’s what cascaded you forwards. Timing doesn’t have to be luck — it can come from a deep understanding of trends and knowing when the right time to strike is...
- MegaButts 7y agoIf you believe timing isn't luck, then isn't it just a subset of execution?
- azinman2 7y agoExecution is about how you solve the problem. Just because it’s solved well doesn’t mean the market is ready to receive it.
- MegaButts 7y agoI feel like you're talking about executing on the product, which I actually consider to be significantly smaller than executing on the market. Bringing a product to market is almost always a larger task than creating the product in the first place. I consider both of those to be execution.
- 7y ago
- zippie 7y agoAgree on timing and execution, from my own founding experience, being early is as the same as being wrong. https://biblia.com/bible/niv/Eccles%209.11 https://biblia.com/bible/niv/Eccles%209.11
- aerophilic 7y agoI don’t think people don’t admit it, it is just too often people think “they are special”. Admittedly, that is a critical part of being a founder/entrepreneur, otherwise knowing just how “stacked against you” the real world is would make you go running for the hills. That said, I absolutely agree it is always about execution, with luck. But to echo someone else’s comment: luck really is about opportunity + preparedness/ability to recognize a true opportunity. For an analogy on the luck part: in poker, everyone is dealt the same hands in the long run. It is about being able to read both the cards and opponents effectively to routinely “win”. On the execution part, it is all about focus, learning to know what is important and what really isn’t. Time spent on anything that doesn’t really matter slows you down. Of course the hard part is knowing what matters and what doesn’t. My simple advise here is to ask yourself two questions: What am I not getting done by doing this? What is more important, this or what I am giving up? One word of caution on the above: understand what is urgent, and what is important, and don’t let things that are important but not urgent slide.
- tzm 7y agoSuccess = Idea * Product * Team * Execution * Luck (where luck is any number between 0-10000)