[PhrosTT]

maybe you're discounting the importance of luck...

somehow society just decides your thing is cool. like when there's 5 equal products and one is successful for no particular reason.

i always think about how weird bars are. you can 2 equal bars but 1 is packed every night... even with zero distinguishing differences. society just says 'oh that bar usually has people, let's go there'.

the problem may not be the product but figuring out how to convince people it's the cool _______ to use.

[rick888]

"like when there's 5 equal products and one is successful for no particular reason."

I don't think it's chance. If there are 5 equal products and 1 is successful, there is a reason. You may not be able to see it right away, but it's probably due to: UI, marketing (the right people saw it), benefits, or simplicity.

Look at twitter as an example of this. It's a simple idea and there were many other potential competitors, yet it's still #1. Why?

I read an article about how they targeted influential bloggers (people that had thousands of readers). This wasn't luck, it was an intelligent marketing move. Myspace did the same thing. They targeted musicians (which in turn got fans to get on board).

"i always think about how weird bars are. you can 2 equal bars but 1 is packed every night... even with zero distinguishing differences. society just says 'oh that bar usually has people, let's go there'."

If you can get women to want to come to your bar, the guys will follow and you will have a packed bar. Two bars also are never "equal". There will always be differences (ambiance, drinks, price, maybe the bathrooms are unclean, etc).

[PhrosTT]

I guess what I was referring to is that sometimes things just blow up.

At a certain point Rainbow sandals became the defacto sandal of southern frat boys. Did they market to them? No. Some influencer decided he liked them and it slowly spread. Now it's just the established norm. Most of society just follows trends. And if you're a company, you are at the mercy of these trends. Yes you can try to create them, but you can fail just because your rival got lucky.

Did Smirnoff Ice instigate Bros Icing Bros? No but they're sales spiked because of it.

Did PBR market to hipsters? No but they adopted it as their own and now PBR reaps the benefits.

Run DMC wrote about Adidas without being paid a cent. Was Adidas really BETTER than any other shoe brand? Adidas just kind of got lucky.

You may throw something back at me about reaching influencers... yes you can try to do that.... but to a certain degree you're at the mercy of society's whims.

[rick888]

"You may throw something back at me about reaching influencers... yes you can try to do that.... but to a certain degree you're at the mercy of society's whims."

You are right about this. But, the amount of companies that became successful due to this sort of luck are the exception rather than the rule. It doesn't happen that often.

[michael_dorfman]

Luck is certainly an element in everything, but we need to be careful to not let the existence of luck blind us to all of the elements that actually are under our control.

For example: you can't, really, have two equal bars. They are going to be in two different locations, and one of those locations is likely better (even if only slightly) than the other. This can be enough of a difference to create a critical mass of people to get the "Cool, this bar is always hopping" effect.

"Zero distinguishing differences" usually just means you haven't analyzed deeply enough.