[oefrha]

Is the average iPhone owner willing to spend $28 on an icon pack? Probably not.

Can you find 3626 iPhone owners willing to spend $28 on an icon pack? Sure you can. In fact I bet you can find 3626 Android owners willing to part with $28 too.

The key to this success story is this:

> Then, MKBHD happened.

[ahmadss]

the key to his success is honing his craft via side projects, sharing these ideas often, having a quick and easy tooling to publish ideas, pushing to prod and sharing these ideas. thats the key to success. the MKBHD pickup is just the recognition of the skill honed through this process.

[necovek]

That seems to ignore the fact that there are hundreds of people of equally "honed skills" not having earned $100k over 6 days.

The key to a success of this type is luck. Sure, you can optimize for being on the path of success, but majority will still be missed.

[edoceo]

"Luck" is what happens when the prepared are given opportunity.

[somesortofthing]

Being "prepared" for a given opportunity is often trivial. Whether the opportunity you're prepared for ever arises is luck.

[virgilp]

No, you underestimate that. Being prepared is increasing your chances. There's one thing to be lucky as "1 in a billion" chance, and there's another to be lucky as "1 in 100"; the odds are always stacked against you, but with preparation & many attempts, your odds start looking better, and "luck" starts happening. (or not; some people are indeed unlucky, despite doing everything right. But that's less common than the other extreme - people that get lucky despite not doing anything rights).

[acomms]

If you're good and persistent eventually you get lucky. Most people just give up because being persistent is emotionally draining.

[Talanes]

Do you consider death to be giving up or getting lucky? Or had you just not considered that some people try very hard until the day they die without getting lucky?

[entropicdrifter]

If you're good and persistent and happen to be prepared enough for whichever type of opportunity happens to present itself for you

[jdmichal]

I mean, it's obviously both skill and luck. Like pretty much anything else that's "instantly" successful.

[itsoktocry]

>The key to a success of this type is luck.

What an odd mentality.

No, the key to success is skill, with effort (grit?) thrown in there as well. Luck can sometimes play a significant factor, all else being equal. But the idea that everyone is equally "good" at things, or put in the same effort, and that it's mere chance that success happens to someone is...pessimistic to say the least.

[pwinnski]

Academic studies have repeatedly found that one of the single biggest determinants in success of just about any kind is luck. It is a very common misconception that hard work results in success, or that talent results in success, but that's looking at the successful from the wrong end.

It is rare to find someone very lazy or completely talentless among the most successful, so it must be hard work and talent, right? No, because it's easy to find very hard-working and talented people who are not successful. In fact, according to research[0], the most successful are usually not the most talented, but those of mediocre talent and a lot of luck.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068

[hota_mazi]

They're not keys, they are requirements. And soft requirements, on top of that.

But luck is a huge component in getting wealthy. Plenty of people with equal skills, equal expertise, and equal hard work never succeed because they don't get the magical conjunction of right time at the right place.

[Aeolun]

Look at Facebook. When it was released there were a hundred products like it, but the specific combination of things Facebook did made it super popular. I cannot believe that was due to skill.

[a1369209993]

You have to have a certain baseline of skill in order to not automatically fail, ie in order to be one of those hundred products in the first place.

[hnlmorg]

It's also worth remembering that Facebook pivoted several times before it became what it is now, taking on ideas that worked for other platforms. For example feeds were added after Twitter became popular.

[sudosysgen]

There is no need to assume that everyone is equally good at things, or puts in the same effort. Some people are much better than others at many things, and yet luck is the biggest determinant of success.

That being said, it doesn't mean that one shouldn't hone their skills and try to be successful. It's just that it's not likely that you will have such meteoric success no matter the skill or effort you put in.

Luck doesn't just play a significant factor, luck almost always plays the biggest factor. But being skillful and putting in effort is the only thing you can change and definitely does help too.

[doc_gunthrop]

Kylie Jenner was proclaimed the "youngest self-made billionaire" by Forbes magazine. Remind me, what is her skill or talent again?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Making money is quite a valuable skill.

[doc_gunthrop]

Sure, but the "self-made" claim is entirely laughable in this case.

[elliotbnvl]

Not odd – it's a common misconception.

But your point is entirely correct.

[vmception]

MKBHD picking it up had nothing to do with his journey or level of skill.

MKBHD could have picked up something much less refined and it would have been popular, a different designer dabbling with no prior mobile icon interest could have come up with something appealing to others as well.

Being there and getting an influencer is what made this story, and can be repeated by anyone. OP is conflating the rest of it with his own trials and tribulations.

[sumedh]

> MKBHD could have picked up something much less refined and it would have been popular

I think MKBHD also has to worry about his reputation, if he promoted something less refined his viewers might get pissed off.

[vmception]

It can happen and happens to influencers all the time. I'm glad it worked out for everyone involved. OP's prior work is not why it worked out.

[oefrha]

The discussion just pointlessly spun out of control.

The key to finding those 3626 people willing to shell out $28 was the exposure, with MKBHD being the biggest contributor.

Whatever was the key to getting that exposure in the first place is irrelevant to my point.

[_ZeD_]

however, he would be still at "$17" of his first icon pack without the exposure trough MKBHD

[trystero]

He was already "around the $6k mark in sales" before MKBHD which is already not too bad for (allegedly) 2 hours of work.

He succeeded because his time to market was shorter than anyone else's.

[shanecleveland]

Sure. He said it himself.

And went on to say:

> The market will decide a huge part of what comes after sharing something, so continually increase your odds by building, publishing, then repeating.

All the people here decrying everything he had done up until this point and proclaiming any degree of success is attributable only to luck is amazing. It's not the same as stumbling on a winning lotto ticking on the street (unless you have spent years scouring the streets looking for winning lotto tickets).

[davidivadavid]

If by "amazing" you mean "embarrassing and enraging", yes.

It's one of those things that makes me want to scream at Hacker News regularly.

Even if you think it's about "luck", how are you modelling it?

MKBHD did a fair coin toss between all of his options?

Nah, doesn't seem realistic.

Some options are probably more likely than others.

Based on what? Oh well, the quality of the product, the buzz around it (which itself is probably based on the quality of the product, how it matches the zeitgeist's aesthetic (which means good understanding of trends, marketing, psychology, etc.)), the original reputation of the person creating the product, and so on.

Hacker News's take: it's just luck, it could have been any other icon set with the same probability.

Yeah, no.

[bluedino]

I wonder what he would have gotten had he did a paid advertisement on Daring Fireball, MacRumors, etc