A corollary to this: if you want to be a badass entrepreneur, focus on getting lucky.<p>The people who really strike it rich - the Elon Musks, Larry Pages, Evan Williamses, Marc Andreessens, Steve Jobses, Mark Zuckerburgs, et al - all seem to devote significant thought and attention to figuring out where the opportunities are that are <i>almost</i> ripe for a company to come in and pick them. To an outsider, it looks like they single-handedly changed the course of history, but if you read in-depth biographies or listen to them speak in person and then try to trace through what their thought process might be, there's a lot of attention to paid to what social or technical trends are just on the cusp of developing, and what the implications of them are. Good entrepreneurs realize that they can't do it alone, so they're always looking out for things that lots of people want to have happen, but need a slight catalyst to get things moving.
Years ago someone said to me, "Luck happens to those who let it." It's stuck with me, because I think it's so true. In fact it's what makes Napoleon's famous (and probably apocryphal) statement actionable: "When I choose Generals I prefer the lucky ones."<p>I've started large companies and tiny / failed ones; although I look back at my own execution problems for the ones that didn't make it, I recognize that the ones that succeeded were lucky, and we were just lucky enough to be able to take advantage of that luck.<p>For example:
- tons of cold calls and regular sales calls until we accidentally signed up the right kinds of customers
- having some customers who told us how we <i>should</i> be running our business, and being smart enough to listen to them
- recognizing at one point, "hey, we're making all our money from customers who ask for Y, why do we think our business is X?" (i.e. what hipsters these days call a "pivot")<p>etc<p>I love the ones who think they're badass -- they're too busy being badass to slog through the mire and get to the mountain.
[Probability is in the mind](<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/oj/probability_is_in_the_mind/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/oj/probability_is_in_the_mind/</a>). It's a reflection of our limited information, not reality. There really isn't anything inherently probabilistic about startups. If we had the right information and enough reasoning ability, we <i>would</i> be able to turn the dials just right. That's in theory.<p>In practice, it's hard to acquire enough information. This is where luck comes into play. You need luck when your information is limited.<p>But in practice, I don't think we should be overly humble worshipers of this "luck". Yes, it's pretty important, but I think you could reach a point of having enough information and reasoning ability where luck is a notably smaller component of success than skill. I think that we have a ways to go in terms of improving our information and reasoning ability.<p>* For example, startup ideas are rarely strategically chosen amongst carefully thought out alternatives. They usually just emerge from a side-project.<p>* And founders really struggle to [isolate](<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/bc3/sotw_be_specific/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/bc3/sotw_be_specific/</a>) what it really is that gives them a competitive advantage over their competitors.<p>I think that in 50 years, people will have gotten "good enough" at startups such that luck is a smaller determinant of success than skill.
What he says not only proves that he is absolutely right, but it also proves that he is absolutely wrong.<p>Kind of reminds me of this:<p>After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.<p>His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning 'a lover of wisdom', soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.<p>So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.<p>Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.
One thing missing from the list is "being born and raised in the right part of the world". And I'm not talking about being able to raise capital, but simply being in a society that embraces and promotes entrepreneurship, as well as having easy access to numerous basic amenities such as food, water, health care, Internet (at decent speeds etc).
If Elon Musk had made $16M, instead of $160M, from PayPal there would be no Tesla or SpaceX. He likely would have spent his time much less productively, and the world would be worse off.<p>And yet, very few people similar to Elon Musk ever find themselves in the position of being rich enough to field an army.<p>In a future where resources aren't so constrained we'll start to see "geniuses" everywhere.
The author makes a familiar point, though it's worth repeating, if only as a reminder to stay humble.<p>That said, I can't help but recall a quote from one of the greatest pro golfers:<p><i>"The harder I practice, the luckier I get" - Gary Player</i><p>Note: the logic only flows one way, in that working hard does not mean one will be successful. Also, there are scant examples of self-made (eg. not inherited) successes without working extremely hard. In other words it's a mostly necessary, but not sufficient condition.
4. Happy to take risks<p>I always wonder what people mean by "risk" in this context. If risk is a probability of failure, then if someone has minimized that probability through other means (seeing an opportunity where others haven't, working real hard, etc.) then it isn't risk. If others aren't trying to do the same thing and failing at it, then it might not be risky.<p>The "risk" thing may just be part of the badass image, but I've read in other places that entrepreneurs actually tend to be risk averse. Rather than simply taking risks, what they (we?) do is to use their skills and knowledge to arrange matters so that their own risk is reduced, even if the same activity might be more risky for someone else who doesn't have the same insight.
Indeed, the following factors below is what makes you a success...<p>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!<p>and<p>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.<p>Good luck everyone!
Summary: Hey, I run an awesome company and look at my face on this magazine.<p>Actually, I really am impressed, and it looks like Carson has good reason to brag. That's cool. But I don't feel like there is all that much substance here.<p>For one, I think Carson himself is discounting that the difference between doing <i>nothing</i> and making $450K on the sale of a business is actually bigger than $450K and the $100M business he's building now.<p>He's living proof that there is more to it than luck, but he's saying the opposite.<p>I guess what's really bugging me here is that the message here is meant to be valuable -- "Anyone can do it." But paradoxically, when Carson and others like him give themselves no credit for their success, then there is nothing we can learn from them. It's like participation trophies -- they don't really teach anybody how to search inside themselves and find the way to <i>win</i>.
You can't win if you don't play. It's not like successful entrepreneurs were just sitting on their asses and success smote them like a lightning bolt.<p>Yes, there's a lot of luck involved, but it takes hard, risky work that most people aren't willing to put in just to have a chance at capturing that luck.
That's why most who have seen some success would say (or so I have heard from their mouths):<p>"The more you try, the luckier you get".<p>There may be an element of luck that may affect to a significant extent (think lottery) without or having little attempts but in the long run it pans out.
This highlights not only the importance of sticking it out, but sticking it out long enough, even after getting smashed many times over.<p>But of course, there has to be a specific and unique insight as a starting point, ala how can you make something better than whats out there now?<p>Its not surprising that people whom are passionate about their circle of competency, those who would venture in all directions from their initial locus/loci, seemingly random areas would pick up observations that others miss.<p>And only those with a genuine passion and interest will continue sticking out, even in the darkest times.
Riding a trend is definitely a sensible thing to do, it reminds me of a lesson that's quite common in fighting sports is to use an opponents momentum to your own advantage.<p>That said, you can get lucky and happen to work on one of the trends or you can try to spot one and ride it consciously.
There's a factor that doesn't change though, you need to be able to execute and I think Ryan is giving himself way too little credit for being good at execution.<p>In particular he had already garnered a significant following with carsonified conferences and his blog before thinkvitamin (now treehouse) took off at the time.<p>There's always the cautionary tale of friendster, who could have been Facebook if they had been better at product management.
I know some entrepreneurs who I think would do well in any era with any idea of the time. My office neighbor 20 years ago was selling vinyl phone book covers and did well. Now he's in SEO. And he's looking to get into healthcare devices next. His entire life is about finding sellable ideas and immersing himself in them until he's an expert.<p>Kind of like the idea that a bank loan officer should avoid business loans to people pursuing their passions and instead focus on the loaning to people who have hard data about why their business will make money.
On balance, I would consider this a fair appraisal. Black swan companies get built because it is the right time. Obviously, it takes skill to know when that is and that the right time is a range. As time goes on it gets easier to do these things, ie electric cars. These were really hard to do in 2005 but now they seem rather obvious. Be early, be correct, and be gritty.
Do you think you had to go through those first few small wins in order to finally take a swing at a homerun? What changed when you did treehouse vs those other smaller businesses? Was it the fact that you didn't need to worry about money in the short-term anymore (because of those small exits), or something else?