I think a lot of it comes down to how you define "luck". Finding the right investor or employee involves a lot of luck, as does getting helped or hurt by a Google algorithm change. Google itself was lucky that it raised a lot of money shortly before the tech crash that killed off many of its competitors.
A better way of understanding the startup world is that everything has a high degree of uncertainty (which you can call luck), and so the smart strategy is to remain as agile as possible, and continually learn from the market in order to refine your strategy and vision. I prefer to think of it as Newton's method of product/market discovery, and the most successful startups are those who are able to iterate the fastest.
A better way of understanding the startup world is that everything has a high degree of uncertainty (which you can call luck), and so the smart strategy is to remain as agile as possible, and continually learn from the market in order to refine your strategy and vision. I prefer to think of it as Newton's method of product/market discovery, and the most successful startups are those who are able to iterate the fastest.