[paul9290]

Indeed, the following factors below is what makes you a success...

1. Luck/Serendipity - Your startup launches for the first or fifth time & boom gets traction, which money/success immediately follows. Think Pinterest, Uber, Facebook, Youtube; basically it's like winning the lottery!

and

2. Network - You know the right people & or convinced them to give you their resources (their connections & money). With this you can do the hard work (have the runway) to make things happen, though maybe not.

Good luck everyone!

[onewaystreet]

Pinterest is the only one of those companies whose success was close to immediate. Uber, Facebook, Youtube all had to grind it out. Uber battled (and still is) many legal challenges; YouTube almost went the way of Napster early on; and Facebook was an underdog to MySpace for a long time.

[paul9290]

As I recall, Uber was picked up quickly in San Francisco. I recall Mike Arrington raving about it when it first launched. It had instant uptake in tech circles & early adopters.

Facebook was instant in the fact that when launched it took Harvard by storm and then grew like a weed thereafter.

[xiaoma]

YouTube was especially amazing in its speed. It went from zero to a $1.6B acquisition is just a year and a half.