Insane luck

It’s easy to attribute winning the startup lottery to a prolific 5-year Github streak, hard work and consistent shipping.

I mean good on you for the effort!

But sorry (not sorry) to say… for every one win with that streak, there’s 10 others with the same work ethic but didn’t win.

No one talks abt the insane luck needed:

• That you arrived at the right time right place in market conditions that favoured your product and had hungry customers willing to pay for it. There’s full of products in the graveyard that had all the right elements but were too early or too late or in the wrong country. Luck and chance often plays a bigger role in our success than we like to give it.

• That you succeeded by standing on the labour of giants before you. That open source software you used for free for your product? That genius AI API you paid cheaply for to integrate to your product? Even that programming language you freely code in like it’s the air you breathe, that latest Javascript framework you fight with others on social media about, has people working on it tirelessly. Your work is so interdependent on others that any success you claim for yourself is tenuous at best.

• That you had the right people supporting you—a supportive family, friends and peers who encouraged you, mentors who guided you. No man’s an island, we’re social animals, but we conveniently forget that when success comes.

• That you had safety nets in terms of skill or savings or a job to go back to. That’s some insane luck to be able to be in favourable circumstances to be able to do that. A sudden layoff or wrong career choice would have meant you never got there in the first place – that’s the life of many others living in poverty, working their ass off in poor-paying jobs.

• A traffic accident, a sudden delibitating illness, all could have messed up your plans for hard work. Yet there you are, in good health, ready to take on the world by putting in the energy. Thousands of others who had the bad luck of an accident or illness wouldn’t be able to do what you do even if they were just as eenrgetic, skilled or rich.

• That you were insanely lucky to be born in wealthy nation to relatively well-off family in the first place. Go tell that poor village kid in Africa that hard work is all you need to succeed. Try saying it with a straight face and clear conscience.

All I’m saying, when others tell you you were lucky to strike the startup lottery, just have the humility to admit you were. And be thankful the universe came together to make it work out for you over countless others who were just like you.

Rant over.