[ransom1538]

Building a successful startup is %90 luck and %10 hard work.

People seek advice from people that are successful. That is why receiving startup advice is so stupid. Being successful in the startup world is mainly luck with a sprinkle of grit. The analogy would be interviewing a lottery winner on how "they did it". The advice is worse than nothing at all. Here is the irony: Advice from people that fail at startups IS useful and actionable - but people don't like to listen to those people.

EG. Munchery. If they had started in 2020 during covid they would be a billion dollar company. They started in 2011 and failed terribly. Luck. IF they had been successful, and did launch in 2020, the advice from this CEO would be horrible. "Hire top talent, etc" Because* the only reason they did succeed was due to timing - and that advice wouldn't be seen or given.

[spiffytech]

The fallacy here is assuming a startup's luck stat is constant. But there's this notion of a "luck surface area", that you can deliberately increase your chances of getting lucky by e.g., hiring people who have a track record of success in a broad range of circumstances instead of narrow, or by networking with diverse, successful industry leaders instead of scrappy unproven founders with no resources.

Seeking advice from successful founders can be useful because some of what they did likely increased their odds of getting lucky, and following their advice could boost your own luck stat, which is useful even if the particular stroke of luck your startup needs is totally different from your advisor's.

[ransom1538]

"Seeking advice from successful founders can be useful because some of what they did likely increased their odds of getting lucky,"

Apparently not. Look at a great incubator. They invest in new ideas all day. It's basically gambling.

[zpeti]

We have some real scientific insight here.

I’m also sure you are a super successful entrepreneur and so definitely know it’s 90% luck.

[marcus_holmes]

We do have some scientific insight because we have several control groups, aka accelerators.

If it wasn't mostly luck, accelerators would have an improved success rate, because they are selected by experienced people based on judgement calls about their likelihood of succeeding [0].

Accelerators actually have, at best, a very minor improvement on the base success rate.

Therefore we can safely conclude that startup success is mostly luck.

[0] Of course, this is using a definition of success that is more than just getting investment. I would define it as "becoming a sustainable business". But that would exclude things like Uber and Twitter that are not sustainable (yet), but are undeniably successful.

[Talanes]

Your trying to use their premise to insult them, but to do that you need to actually understand and keep within the premise.

The error that you have made being that in the scenario presented, the successful entrepreneur does not know that luck is the main reason for their success.

A better zinger would be something in the lines of suggesting that the poster only knows all this because of how acutely they have failed. Just as you have.