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I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night a

I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. We got to talk for about 30 seconds, mentioned my company, she asked me to email her. I did, and that very quickly led to my first big customer which makes me about double what a FAANG swe would make. My advice: get lucky. My insight porn version: 10 easy steps I used to get $500K ARR and how you can do it too

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bombcar 4y ago
"Get lucky" is always the key - however, you can increase your "luck surface" by doing certain things (for example, you couldn't have gotten lucky if you hadn't started the company, nor if you hadn't bothered to talk to people).
- rograndom 4y ago
  Not just getting lucky, but being ready to get lucky. If they didn't have the company or the product already, bumping into the former manager wouldn't be enough. And I think I've just given the type of advice TFA is railing about :)
  - manmal 4y ago
    Well it’s true, you can’t win the lottery without buying the ticket. Only that way you don’t know what prize you’re playing for.
  - zigman1 4y ago
    Ross Brawn said in his book about strategy that the luck is preparation waiting for opportunity
- danaris 4y ago
  > you can increase your "luck surface" by doing certain things ....and your chances of being able to do those things (without severe risk of poverty and homelessness) are increased dramatically by having been lucky enough to be born wealthy, or at least upper-middle-class.
  - draugadrotten 4y ago
    > ....and your chances of being able to do those things (without severe risk of poverty and homelessness) are increased dramatically by having been lucky enough to be born wealthy, or at least upper-middle-class. That's some good insight porn right there!
    - TuringTest 4y ago
      > That's some good insight porn right there! ...and yet, all poor people know it by heart (unless they were born into a rich family that has just fallen from grace), , because it's totally true. For more good insight: wealthy families know a lot more about how to make money when you have some money. Poor families know a lot more about avoiding the risk of being totally broke from an unlucky event, because they know they'd be totally unable to recover from it (not having the safety net of education and wealthy contacts that the upper-middle class have even when they go broke).
      - LouisSayers 4y ago
        Somewhat true except for the fact that education isn't fixed. It's a variable that changes. You might start with little wealth and accumulate education on your journey. Therefore in the early years when you lose wealth it's difficult to accumulate more, but over time it can become easier as you are more educated and experienced. Having little wealth when young also allows you to live on very little - when combined with an education you can use this very nicely to say bootstrap a product.
        TuringTest 4y ago
        Right, education is a form of capital. Which means that those who begin with more of it will have a head-start which grows exponentially, leaving behind those which start with none of it.
- nthypes 4y ago
  this is only true if the "unlucky" payout is not that big, so you can increase your "luck surface" without worrying about the effects for "unlucky" results, otherwise increase your "lucky surface" could increase your downside of "unluckyness"
  - eloff 4y ago
    Technology startups are naturally kind of like this. They have limited downside and unlimited upside. However, in my life that limited downside has cost me a lot of money in opportunity costs over twenty years. I might be retired had I been able to work for money with the same energy and time I applied to my startup projects. But reality isn't quite like that, I would have been so unhappy doing that, it wouldn't have been sustainable (I tried working that hard for money for two years and it was horrible!) Those startup projects were so fulfilling and I learned so much on the journey. Even though I haven't found success yet, I haven't given up and the journey itself has been incredibly rewarding.
    - soulofmischief 4y ago
      Solidarity, friend. Keep doing what makes you happy, keep learning every day, keep trying new things, keep meeting new people, and you're giving yourself the best odds you can get.
- falcor84 4y ago
  The book "Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire" is a wonderful example of how what seemed to be a lucky break for Peter Thiel was actually a product of extensive preparation for an opportunity to take revenge on Gawker.
  - dave1999x 4y ago
    Thiel's lucky was PayPal. It projected him from very wealthy to super wealthy. Subsequently, he's used the resources that that lucky has afforded him.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  “Why successful founders never get their groceries delivered”
  - gundmc 4y ago
    This is perfect.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    ...followed up a few years later with "I was wrong in my previous article and didn't go far enough. Read my part 2: Why successful founders should deliver groceries". You may get your chance to pitch a famous VC partner while you instacart/doordash.
- chowells 4y ago
  No one ever talks about the opportunity cost of building up a "luck surface". What is the expected value of doing so? What do you have to sacrifice to do so? Is there any evidence the EV is positive, or is this just another selection bias?
  - nickff 4y ago
    Well, one extreme example is buying lottery tickets; it's the best way to expose yourself to the potential upside of winning the lottery, yet the expected value is quite negative. That example is quite bracing, but I think it points out that there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      >there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational. I agree. Something as straightforward as being known as someone who does good work, putting yourself out there somewhat (writing, speaking, etc.), basically developing a network of people who you know at least professionally is certainly a way a lot of people develop at least something of a "luck surface." It may well not produce the big win but it can certainly lead to "lucky" opportunities. Of course, there are other options that are more like gambles that may have negative EV but if you don't play big you probably won't win big.
    - scarmig 4y ago
      All the talk about building a great "luck surface" is just an attempt to deny luck: something might seem like luck, but it's really part of an intentional strategy to maximize potential value! For any given "luck surface" strategy, you can find far more people who haven't achieved massive success using it than those who have. Some strategies are probably better than others, but those are not foreseeable in advance.
      - tomnipotent 4y ago
        It's luck because you have no direct control over it - it happens by unpredictable circumstances. Think of networking, and imagine every person you meet and build a rapport with as non-parametric distribution that you're randomly sampling from over time (future interactions). You have no clue if each sample is going to yield positive results, but you can increase your chance of a positive outcome overall by increasing the number of distributions (people) you're sampling from (maintaining relationships). So much of it ends up by random chance, what else could it be but luck?
- hyperpallium2 4y ago
  > Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    And success is being lucky repeatedly, so you can't really plan for it; only be disqualified if you're below the minimum entry point of preparedness. Anyone telling you that they worked hard to achieve their current success is falling to the survivor bias fallacy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- borroka 4y ago
  There is another layer here, which is how much you increase the "luck surface" by doing certain things. Is it 10%, so you move from 1% probability to have "success" to 1.1%? Or 50% from 30 to 45%? Increasing the luck surface sounds smart and insightful and I have been guilty to use the term quite nonchalantly myself, but without quantification and direction of the luck-surface actions, it means very little. In the specific case discussed, apart from the "building a company" part which is admirable but kinda to be taken for granted when selling services, it sounds like walking increased their luck surface. Had he taken a Uber or gone to a different store, maybe the company won't be here (guessing). I continue to call it luck.
ineedasername 4y ago
So what you’re saying is that I should Always Be Grocery Shopping? Because you never know who you’ll meet there. No, don’t worry about taking the time to reply & say that of course that’s what you mean. I’m already halfway through dictating a blogpost on my way to the grocery store right now. Thank you, I never would have seen it as the rich business networking venue it clearly is without your insight.
- 79C5 4y ago
  idk if you're joking, but urbanist writer James Kunstler points out that grocery stores are the only place in the suburbs where you can actually have a spontaneous interaction with your neighbors. Maybe ymmv but in the suburb where I live, there are no sidewalks and like 1-to-3 people walk by per day.
aparks517 4y ago
"Get lucky" is solid advice, but you've also got to give luck something to work with. I think your overnight success started a long time ago, at least as far back as when you showed your manager you weren't a bozo.
- lupire 4y ago
  Of course but there's no insight there. It's just, be smart, study and learn a lot, maintain a decent appearance, work hard on useful or interesting things, kep stretching and growing to new things, make friends, keep in touch, ask to get paid for you work. Completely normal "middle class / entrepreneur values" type stuff.
aaws11 4y ago
how about "make your own luck"? so that way you don't have to fear the uncertainty of luck!?
startupdiscuss 4y ago
Note: you had to be kind and nice enough for the former boss to care enough to: - ask you to email - read it and understand what you do - follow up and spend the company's money edit: simplicity
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pbalau 4y ago
  And the "get lucky" transforms in "build a network"
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  One of my friends went to space and had her life radically changed last year, and the opportunity entirely arose from the fact that she is one of the kindest and nicest people you will ever meet, and if you were tasked with filling the seat on that rocket, she'd be on the top of your list. She got "lucky" in the sense that narrowly surviving bone cancer as a kid gave her a compelling story, but it's everything she did after getting cancer, and her conviction to follow her dreams, which led to the opportunity.
  - sebzim4500 4y ago
    I saw the netflix documentary about that mission and Hayley was basically the main character.
    - soulofmischief 4y ago
      That documentary was pretty good. It's awesome seeing her leverage the whole situation, interviewing with so many people, joining the SpaceX medical team, she really took the inspiration part of inspiration 4 seriously. Both her and her brother are very kind, her brother is decent at smash bros too.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Solid advice, yeah get lucky. No shortcuts.
thenerdhead 4y ago
While most would call it luck, most self-help "insight porn" from the 1800s would say it is "fortunate" because you are in control of influencing it with your previous actions. If a complete stranger became your big customer from the same scenario, that would be luck.
- rjtavares 4y ago
  Can we stop pretending theses things aren't luck? Sure, there's merit involved - but that's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. There's a million competent people having basically the same drive and capability. The thing that makes a difference is luck. Period. Please note: this doesn't mean that succesful people don't deserve the success - most times they do. It's just that there are many more people, equally deserving, that didn't have the same success. Let's treat those people better.
  - thenerdhead 4y ago
    The word fortunate includes an aspect of luck. Successful people are successful because they put themselves out into the world to expand their fortune. They seize common opportunities and make them great. Those opportunities come back around like the original comment. The whole idea of "building one's fortune" or having a "fortune be told" instills in the idea that your actions are what influences your chance of being lucky in a positive light(never negative).
    - theonething 4y ago
      What if your actions are also a byproduct of luck? E.g. if one is born retarded or with another mental disability, that prevents them from the actions that increase the chances of luck occurrence. A less extreme example is a person born with dysthymia who possesses less of the mental energy required to put themselves out there to expand their fortune and become successful. Conversely, if one is lucky enough to be born with high innate intelligence and drive, coupled with a good upbringing and role models, they will more likely engage in actions that bring about luck and success. One might argue that in many cases, people are not beholden to their genetics/circumstances and can rise above them. A dysthymic person can put forth the effort to get the help they need. I might argue that even this is a byproduct of luck in that the person was lucky enough to not have an incurable form of depression and also was lucky to have access to the resources to overcome it.
vidarh 4y ago
My first company got its investment because one of my co-founders talked about it to a random stranger at a bar, who turned out to have money burning in his pocket. I second your advice to get lucky. Most of my 27 year career has followed as a domino from that. Once we'd paid back his investment and exited (for a pittance; the ISP marked we'd entered had become impossible for a small player), his lawyer happened to get a question from another client if he knew any software developers locally. That job led me to meet someone who left to start a company, and I followed. There I met one of the co-founders of my next startup. That startup hired a lawyer who later went on to hire me for one of his startups. The co-founder of that startup hired me for my current job. There have been interludes that did not follow so directly, and there are certainly things I've done to help things along, but there are also many more examples of luck involved along the way too. I'm sure I could have gotten a lot less lucky and still done ok, or been more lucky and done better, but overall I've come out of a lot of things disproportionately well.
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  The initial part has a large element of luck, but to be fair it was also because your co-founder was busy networking in public spaces. And most of the events after that sound like the fruits of being skilled, agreeable and available. Luck played a part, but don't sell yourself short. :)
  - vidarh 4y ago
    While skill etc. certainly also played a part - I'm not in any way suggesting that luck is sufficient -, my point was that most of these were intertwined in a way that meant they were dependent on that first domino. I probably would have done fine without it, but it'd have looked very different. Even though my skills certainly also played a role, I could also have been equally skilled and taken another job and missed out on meeting the right people and ended up with far less satisfying outcomes. And many do. Or I could have been born somewhere where I wouldn't have had the same opportunities. Luck and skill amplify each other, and a problem is that people often want to think it was all down to their skills. A lot of subsequent failures happen when people fail to learn the right lessons because they don't understand which parts of their earlier successes were down to luck and so try to copy the same approach in different conditions.
mrtksn 4y ago
> My advice: get lucky. That's actually great and actionable advice. The more draws you have the better chances you get to luck out. The actionable part is the draw participation and you participate with your each interaction multiplied with your relevancy surface. Do you know who did not luck out with your former manager? Those who did not had a company that does the things you do and those who might have had but did not interact with your ex manager. IMHO lucking out is a very straightforward strategy and is relevant not only in business but in romantic relationships or friendships or any other partnerships. Just don't expect to luck out on your first try and multiple participations is much easier than trying to design the luck on first try.
nthypes 4y ago
this is only true if the "unlucky" payout is not that big, so you can increase your "luck surface" without worrying about the effects for "unlucky" results, otherwise increase your "lucky surface" could increase your downside of "unluckyness"
amelius 4y ago
Question: did you get the idea for your startup while doing your internship? Perhaps the advice is: do more internships :)
aaron695 4y ago
dominotw 4y ago
>Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. Not sure if 100% luck because I usually switch to the sidewalk other side of the road when i spot someone i know coming down the sidewalk that i know :D
holoduke 4y ago
It's always easy to say it's luck. But I don't think it is. You created opportunity. And that's the key thing. Create opportunities. As many as possible. I did something similar. Started with a dollar a day. Ended up with several thousands a day. The only thing I consider luck is the fact that a grew up in a stable family in a rich country where I got faced with computers at a very early age. I received enough time to explore my desires. Never felt any pressure or whatsoever. But the businesses I created where my own work.
- LouisSayers 4y ago
  There's an irony that people don't even recognise that they are already relatively more wealthy than much of the world when talking about "rich people". We do create our own luck to a certain degree and for anyone born in a first world country we have so many opportunities all around us - many simply choose poorly.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  It's astounding that you try to spin this as him "creating opportunity". This is dumb luck, plain and simple.
deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago

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bombcar 4y ago

"Get lucky" is always the key - however, you can increase your "luck surface" by doing certain things (for example, you couldn't have gotten lucky if you hadn't started the company, nor if you hadn't bothered to talk to people).

rograndom 4y ago
Not just getting lucky, but being ready to get lucky. If they didn't have the company or the product already, bumping into the former manager wouldn't be enough. And I think I've just given the type of advice TFA is railing about :)
- manmal 4y ago
  Well it’s true, you can’t win the lottery without buying the ticket. Only that way you don’t know what prize you’re playing for.
- zigman1 4y ago
  Ross Brawn said in his book about strategy that the luck is preparation waiting for opportunity
danaris 4y ago
> you can increase your "luck surface" by doing certain things ....and your chances of being able to do those things (without severe risk of poverty and homelessness) are increased dramatically by having been lucky enough to be born wealthy, or at least upper-middle-class.
- draugadrotten 4y ago
  > ....and your chances of being able to do those things (without severe risk of poverty and homelessness) are increased dramatically by having been lucky enough to be born wealthy, or at least upper-middle-class. That's some good insight porn right there!
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    > That's some good insight porn right there! ...and yet, all poor people know it by heart (unless they were born into a rich family that has just fallen from grace), , because it's totally true. For more good insight: wealthy families know a lot more about how to make money when you have some money. Poor families know a lot more about avoiding the risk of being totally broke from an unlucky event, because they know they'd be totally unable to recover from it (not having the safety net of education and wealthy contacts that the upper-middle class have even when they go broke).
    - LouisSayers 4y ago
      Somewhat true except for the fact that education isn't fixed. It's a variable that changes. You might start with little wealth and accumulate education on your journey. Therefore in the early years when you lose wealth it's difficult to accumulate more, but over time it can become easier as you are more educated and experienced. Having little wealth when young also allows you to live on very little - when combined with an education you can use this very nicely to say bootstrap a product.
      - TuringTest 4y ago
        Right, education is a form of capital. Which means that those who begin with more of it will have a head-start which grows exponentially, leaving behind those which start with none of it.
nthypes 4y ago
this is only true if the "unlucky" payout is not that big, so you can increase your "luck surface" without worrying about the effects for "unlucky" results, otherwise increase your "lucky surface" could increase your downside of "unluckyness"
- eloff 4y ago
  Technology startups are naturally kind of like this. They have limited downside and unlimited upside. However, in my life that limited downside has cost me a lot of money in opportunity costs over twenty years. I might be retired had I been able to work for money with the same energy and time I applied to my startup projects. But reality isn't quite like that, I would have been so unhappy doing that, it wouldn't have been sustainable (I tried working that hard for money for two years and it was horrible!) Those startup projects were so fulfilling and I learned so much on the journey. Even though I haven't found success yet, I haven't given up and the journey itself has been incredibly rewarding.
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    Solidarity, friend. Keep doing what makes you happy, keep learning every day, keep trying new things, keep meeting new people, and you're giving yourself the best odds you can get.
falcor84 4y ago
The book "Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire" is a wonderful example of how what seemed to be a lucky break for Peter Thiel was actually a product of extensive preparation for an opportunity to take revenge on Gawker.
- dave1999x 4y ago
  Thiel's lucky was PayPal. It projected him from very wealthy to super wealthy. Subsequently, he's used the resources that that lucky has afforded him.
steveBK123 4y ago
“Why successful founders never get their groceries delivered”
- gundmc 4y ago
  This is perfect.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  ...followed up a few years later with "I was wrong in my previous article and didn't go far enough. Read my part 2: Why successful founders should deliver groceries". You may get your chance to pitch a famous VC partner while you instacart/doordash.
chowells 4y ago
No one ever talks about the opportunity cost of building up a "luck surface". What is the expected value of doing so? What do you have to sacrifice to do so? Is there any evidence the EV is positive, or is this just another selection bias?
- nickff 4y ago
  Well, one extreme example is buying lottery tickets; it's the best way to expose yourself to the potential upside of winning the lottery, yet the expected value is quite negative. That example is quite bracing, but I think it points out that there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >there are many ways to build this 'luck surface', and the expected values of each are probably very different, and likely situational. I agree. Something as straightforward as being known as someone who does good work, putting yourself out there somewhat (writing, speaking, etc.), basically developing a network of people who you know at least professionally is certainly a way a lot of people develop at least something of a "luck surface." It may well not produce the big win but it can certainly lead to "lucky" opportunities. Of course, there are other options that are more like gambles that may have negative EV but if you don't play big you probably won't win big.
  - scarmig 4y ago
    All the talk about building a great "luck surface" is just an attempt to deny luck: something might seem like luck, but it's really part of an intentional strategy to maximize potential value! For any given "luck surface" strategy, you can find far more people who haven't achieved massive success using it than those who have. Some strategies are probably better than others, but those are not foreseeable in advance.
    - tomnipotent 4y ago
      It's luck because you have no direct control over it - it happens by unpredictable circumstances. Think of networking, and imagine every person you meet and build a rapport with as non-parametric distribution that you're randomly sampling from over time (future interactions). You have no clue if each sample is going to yield positive results, but you can increase your chance of a positive outcome overall by increasing the number of distributions (people) you're sampling from (maintaining relationships). So much of it ends up by random chance, what else could it be but luck?
hyperpallium2 4y ago
> Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.
- TuringTest 4y ago
  And success is being lucky repeatedly, so you can't really plan for it; only be disqualified if you're below the minimum entry point of preparedness. Anyone telling you that they worked hard to achieve their current success is falling to the survivor bias fallacy.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
borroka 4y ago
There is another layer here, which is how much you increase the "luck surface" by doing certain things. Is it 10%, so you move from 1% probability to have "success" to 1.1%? Or 50% from 30 to 45%? Increasing the luck surface sounds smart and insightful and I have been guilty to use the term quite nonchalantly myself, but without quantification and direction of the luck-surface actions, it means very little. In the specific case discussed, apart from the "building a company" part which is admirable but kinda to be taken for granted when selling services, it sounds like walking increased their luck surface. Had he taken a Uber or gone to a different store, maybe the company won't be here (guessing). I continue to call it luck.

ineedasername 4y ago

So what you’re saying is that I should Always Be Grocery Shopping? Because you never know who you’ll meet there. No, don’t worry about taking the time to reply & say that of course that’s what you mean. I’m already halfway through dictating a blogpost on my way to the grocery store right now. Thank you, I never would have seen it as the rich business networking venue it clearly is without your insight.

79C5 4y ago
idk if you're joking, but urbanist writer James Kunstler points out that grocery stores are the only place in the suburbs where you can actually have a spontaneous interaction with your neighbors. Maybe ymmv but in the suburb where I live, there are no sidewalks and like 1-to-3 people walk by per day.

aparks517 4y ago

"Get lucky" is solid advice, but you've also got to give luck something to work with. I think your overnight success started a long time ago, at least as far back as when you showed your manager you weren't a bozo.

lupire 4y ago
Of course but there's no insight there. It's just, be smart, study and learn a lot, maintain a decent appearance, work hard on useful or interesting things, kep stretching and growing to new things, make friends, keep in touch, ask to get paid for you work. Completely normal "middle class / entrepreneur values" type stuff.

aaws11 4y ago

how about "make your own luck"? so that way you don't have to fear the uncertainty of luck!?

startupdiscuss 4y ago

Note: you had to be kind and nice enough for the former boss to care enough to: - ask you to email - read it and understand what you do - follow up and spend the company's money edit: simplicity

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pbalau 4y ago
And the "get lucky" transforms in "build a network"
soulofmischief 4y ago
One of my friends went to space and had her life radically changed last year, and the opportunity entirely arose from the fact that she is one of the kindest and nicest people you will ever meet, and if you were tasked with filling the seat on that rocket, she'd be on the top of your list. She got "lucky" in the sense that narrowly surviving bone cancer as a kid gave her a compelling story, but it's everything she did after getting cancer, and her conviction to follow her dreams, which led to the opportunity.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  I saw the netflix documentary about that mission and Hayley was basically the main character.
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    That documentary was pretty good. It's awesome seeing her leverage the whole situation, interviewing with so many people, joining the SpaceX medical team, she really took the inspiration part of inspiration 4 seriously. Both her and her brother are very kind, her brother is decent at smash bros too.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Solid advice, yeah get lucky. No shortcuts.

thenerdhead 4y ago

While most would call it luck, most self-help "insight porn" from the 1800s would say it is "fortunate" because you are in control of influencing it with your previous actions. If a complete stranger became your big customer from the same scenario, that would be luck.

rjtavares 4y ago
Can we stop pretending theses things aren't luck? Sure, there's merit involved - but that's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. There's a million competent people having basically the same drive and capability. The thing that makes a difference is luck. Period. Please note: this doesn't mean that succesful people don't deserve the success - most times they do. It's just that there are many more people, equally deserving, that didn't have the same success. Let's treat those people better.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  The word fortunate includes an aspect of luck. Successful people are successful because they put themselves out into the world to expand their fortune. They seize common opportunities and make them great. Those opportunities come back around like the original comment. The whole idea of "building one's fortune" or having a "fortune be told" instills in the idea that your actions are what influences your chance of being lucky in a positive light(never negative).
  - theonething 4y ago
    What if your actions are also a byproduct of luck? E.g. if one is born retarded or with another mental disability, that prevents them from the actions that increase the chances of luck occurrence. A less extreme example is a person born with dysthymia who possesses less of the mental energy required to put themselves out there to expand their fortune and become successful. Conversely, if one is lucky enough to be born with high innate intelligence and drive, coupled with a good upbringing and role models, they will more likely engage in actions that bring about luck and success. One might argue that in many cases, people are not beholden to their genetics/circumstances and can rise above them. A dysthymic person can put forth the effort to get the help they need. I might argue that even this is a byproduct of luck in that the person was lucky enough to not have an incurable form of depression and also was lucky to have access to the resources to overcome it.

vidarh 4y ago

My first company got its investment because one of my co-founders talked about it to a random stranger at a bar, who turned out to have money burning in his pocket. I second your advice to get lucky. Most of my 27 year career has followed as a domino from that. Once we'd paid back his investment and exited (for a pittance; the ISP marked we'd entered had become impossible for a small player), his lawyer happened to get a question from another client if he knew any software developers locally. That job led me to meet someone who left to start a company, and I followed. There I met one of the co-founders of my next startup. That startup hired a lawyer who later went on to hire me for one of his startups. The co-founder of that startup hired me for my current job. There have been interludes that did not follow so directly, and there are certainly things I've done to help things along, but there are also many more examples of luck involved along the way too. I'm sure I could have gotten a lot less lucky and still done ok, or been more lucky and done better, but overall I've come out of a lot of things disproportionately well.

soulofmischief 4y ago
The initial part has a large element of luck, but to be fair it was also because your co-founder was busy networking in public spaces. And most of the events after that sound like the fruits of being skilled, agreeable and available. Luck played a part, but don't sell yourself short. :)
- vidarh 4y ago
  While skill etc. certainly also played a part - I'm not in any way suggesting that luck is sufficient -, my point was that most of these were intertwined in a way that meant they were dependent on that first domino. I probably would have done fine without it, but it'd have looked very different. Even though my skills certainly also played a role, I could also have been equally skilled and taken another job and missed out on meeting the right people and ended up with far less satisfying outcomes. And many do. Or I could have been born somewhere where I wouldn't have had the same opportunities. Luck and skill amplify each other, and a problem is that people often want to think it was all down to their skills. A lot of subsequent failures happen when people fail to learn the right lessons because they don't understand which parts of their earlier successes were down to luck and so try to copy the same approach in different conditions.

mrtksn 4y ago

> My advice: get lucky. That's actually great and actionable advice. The more draws you have the better chances you get to luck out. The actionable part is the draw participation and you participate with your each interaction multiplied with your relevancy surface. Do you know who did not luck out with your former manager? Those who did not had a company that does the things you do and those who might have had but did not interact with your ex manager. IMHO lucking out is a very straightforward strategy and is relevant not only in business but in romantic relationships or friendships or any other partnerships. Just don't expect to luck out on your first try and multiple participations is much easier than trying to design the luck on first try.

nthypes 4y ago

this is only true if the "unlucky" payout is not that big, so you can increase your "luck surface" without worrying about the effects for "unlucky" results, otherwise increase your "lucky surface" could increase your downside of "unluckyness"

amelius 4y ago

Question: did you get the idea for your startup while doing your internship? Perhaps the advice is: do more internships :)

aaron695 4y ago

dominotw 4y ago

>Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. Not sure if 100% luck because I usually switch to the sidewalk other side of the road when i spot someone i know coming down the sidewalk that i know :D

holoduke 4y ago

It's always easy to say it's luck. But I don't think it is. You created opportunity. And that's the key thing. Create opportunities. As many as possible. I did something similar. Started with a dollar a day. Ended up with several thousands a day. The only thing I consider luck is the fact that a grew up in a stable family in a rich country where I got faced with computers at a very early age. I received enough time to explore my desires. Never felt any pressure or whatsoever. But the businesses I created where my own work.

LouisSayers 4y ago
There's an irony that people don't even recognise that they are already relatively more wealthy than much of the world when talking about "rich people". We do create our own luck to a certain degree and for anyone born in a first world country we have so many opportunities all around us - many simply choose poorly.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
It's astounding that you try to spin this as him "creating opportunity". This is dumb luck, plain and simple.

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