[rowyourboat]

It's doing-the-right-things plus luck.

You do need to be good at marketing. You do need to get product-market-fit quickly. You do need to have a good product, and so on.

The better you are at these things, the less luck is required. But you cannot get the amount of luck needed down to zero.

[chew827]

Seems like this is kind of a parallel to his "lottery" analogy - doing those things is sort of like buying another ticket. Your chances might be better but it doesn't mean you're going to win.