Has anyone actually duplicated any form of success exclusively by studying/analyzing the business models of successful startups? In grad school we went through

Has anyone actually duplicated any form of success exclusively by studying/analyzing the business models of successful startups? In grad school we went through dozens harvard business review case studies on large and small companies. All the reasoning about why they failed or succeeded just seemed too locally connected to actually be true. Honestly I just felt like there was nothing to learn from reviewing them. Yes, people already know that luck plays a factor in success, but someone needs to sit down and quantify it. I secretly suspect that it is much larger that most people think it is. Here I'm talking purely about business decisions/strategies. I'm leveling the playing field by assuming that companies are able to hire qualified people to plan/execute the creation of a high-quality product/service. Edit: BTW. This is a great read for people interested in how chance affects our daily lives. http://amzn.com/0307275175 http://amzn.com/0307275175