Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame.

> "Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful because she happened to be in the right place at the right time."

No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberate and evidence of a good publicity and marketing crew at work.

Whenever the NYTimes writes about some new app, some new startup, or a new product, suffice it to say some marketing legwork has been done. This isn't to insinuate some kind of payola, but rather that "getting noticed" is 90% putting your product in front of important people - these leads are rarely ever organic.

To bring it back into our tech-world for a moment: do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background?

So no, Carly Rae Jepsen wasn't "in the right place at the right time", she had a catchy pop tune, an incredibly well-executed music video with just enough shock/controversy to go viral, and incredible timing.

And luck. But let's not shovel everything under luck.

She's actually an excellent example. She is a Canadian performer who placed third on a season of Canadian Idol, and it happened that Justin Bieber was listening to the radio, heard "Call Me Maybe," and tweeted about it. Perhaps the song would have spread later on its own, but Canadians can probably point to five or six other well-played pop songs that never really crossed the border.

But how many times did Carly practice and rehearse and sing that song in public before that happened? Dozens? Hundreds? And just to make it on the show Canadian Idol and get that exposure - was that luck? Or did it take a lot of courage and gut churning effort?

She EARNED that chance to be heard by Bieber. Luck doesn't and never does have anything to do with it. Luck doesn't exist. The word luck is just a way to discredit hard work and unseen efforts.

The luck is that he happened to hear that song at that time. What happens if there's another channel on, not playing that song?

Think of it as a 6 sided dice roll. 3d6 simulates a bell curve of skill + 1d6 simulating luck, and you need 18 or more to "win." The top of the top talent will rise to the top with or without luck. Those without the drive or talent won't "win" even if they have the best luck.

But to ignore that luck exists? Talent and hard work are a pre-requesite, but everything from winning the genetic lottery (passport from an Industrialized country) to being attractive.

For another example... in 1999, a Canadian band called The Tea Party had a #1 single called "Heaven Coming down," and had a great run in Canada, but they never became the global sensation Nickelback did, despite having talent. (That is not to disparage Nickelback -- that band worked hard, and had talent. Why did one make it in America, and one only in Canada, and Europe/Australia to a lesser extent?)

King's X was rated one of the top 100 artists of hard rock by VH1. They toured their ass off, yet somehow never captured the attention that others expected them to get. Sometimes, it isn't all about talent and hard work.

Again: talent is a prerequesite. Luck does not cancel talent out by any means! Luck does not describe Bill Gates -- he likely would have been successful even if his parents weren't millionaires. However, we might all remember CP/M a little better if Mary Maxwell Gates isn't on the United Way board with John Opel.

Now, that doesn't mean Gates and Microsoft doesn't become massive in another way. However, that small bit of "luck" helped tilt IBM to trust a less known entity. ___

The way I look at luck is not like the lottery, but rather a dice roll. You may have to roll yahtzee, but if you give yourself a thousand chances, you're better off than the person who only gives themselves one chance, or resigns themselves to failure because they figure only someone lucky can roll yahtzee.

You still may have to be at the right place at the right time, but if you work hard to stick around the right place, the right time is significantly more likely.

> do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background?

It is luck. If you emphasize the preparation part (of 'where preparation meets opportunity' -Seneca).

Of the three developers I know who have been featured in the App Store (New & Noteworthy, not the main spotlight), Apple contacted them out of the blue. In one case, they asked one of them to change their App title so it was less spammy (it was). All of the apps were polished and worthy of the designation (and not games). We believe that App Store reviewers have a special queue to submit noteworthy apps that are then editorially reviewed. Really, as an upstream commenter noted about reviewing film festival submissions, there is a lot of mediocre apps - good ones stand out in the stream.

I have an anecdote to counter your anecdote - I have worked with a company whose apps have been regularly featured in the App Store (and beyond) due to extensive legwork by our (extremely competent) marketing folk.

The fact that the apps were incredibly well-made didn't hurt.

And this underscores the whole point - success is a probability function, it is hardly ever guaranteed. The author seems to blow this out of proportion though, and suggests the common refrain that one should just give up/get out of the game. This ignores the innumerable things you can do to improve your own odds, that others aren't doing already.

A large part of that is to make sure that your product/skill is actually good. But that is incomplete.

> due to extensive legwork by our (extremely competent) marketing folk.

Without giving away the secret sauce, does that company have a strong niche that they excel in? I am fascinated by competent marketing; one of the apps I mentioned, before their launch, basically pulled together anyone who had ever emailed them about their previous apps and sent a really gorgeous teaser email.

I also wonder if your app icons are in the top 1%.

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