How I'm trying to be more lucky with my startup
Sharing my thoughts on Luck and how I'm trying to get more of it for my business.
A few weeks ago I listened to a short but very good episode about Luck and Risk on the My First Million podcast (MFM for those who know). In this episode Shaan Puri, one of the hosts, outlines the actions one could take to increase their Luck likelihood while managing Risk.
I had come across the same framework years ago. If memory serves me right, it was Naval Ravikant who first proposed. At the time I read about it I did not ponder deeply enough on it nor take serious action. I was not yet working on my own company but was planning to in the future; I thought it was an interesting mental model for later when I build my own company, but it could have equally served me well for other aspects of life. Now that I am fighting daily in the startup arena while building EnVsion, I feel that I am in a better place to relay Shaan and Naval’s thoughts while giving examples on how I apply these rules to my own life.
This post will focus on how I am trying to create more Luck in my business life. I’ll write another article on managing Risk at a future time.
Luck is everywhere
Luck is everywhere around us and it is generally an element we cannot control. To be more precise here I am referring to “good” Luck, the kind that puts us in a favourable position. While Luck cannot be produced at will, we can however take steps to increase its likelihood of happening.
According to Shaan (and Naval), there are 4 types of Luck:
Blind Luck
This is when good Luck hits you without you having to lift a finger (aka struck by lightning). It is therefore the“laziest” kind of Luck you could benefit from.
For instance, you could be born into a wealthy family, which gives you undeniable advantages from an early age. This doesn’t imply that you will go on to do memorable deeds, or even increase the family fortunes, but it gives you the security and the confidence to attempt things that others from more modest backgrounds could not easily muster the resources to carry out.
There is no point dwelling much on this kind of Luck because it’s completely out of our control. Life is not fair after all.
Luck created by motion
This is best characterised by the saying Fortune favours the bold. You catch this kind of Luck when you are adding motion to your plans. For instance during the era of the Gold Rush in the USA, simply moving to California was a deliberate effort to try becoming wealthy by being in the right place at the right time. In modern times, moving to Silicon Valley could similarly increase your chances of being lucky because you immerse yourself in a place with lots of energy, talent, and capital to increase the likelihood of success building startups.
On my end, I am currently embracing this type of Luck by taking active part in the Ramen Club community of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. I feel this is the right group of ambitious and dynamic individuals for me to be part of at this stage of my journey. I have already learned so much from the amazing people in the community and hope to be able give more back to this great bunch of people.
Luck created by skill
Chance favours the prepared mind, as they say. This type of Luck occurs when people who have honed their craft in a given subject seize the opportunity of the moment to capitalise on their know-how.
The most recent example that comes to mind for me is Peter Levels, who after tinkering in public on Twitter with generative AI - which is very high on the hype cycle currently - launched the AI SaaS products Interior AI and Avatar AI. Both products were born out of Peter’s curiosity and energy towards this fast growing AI trend, which he has materialised into these two successful products.
Interestingly, Peter benefited from an already great distribution due to his popularity on Twitter and past businesses successes with NomadList and Remoteok, so his success here could be partly explained by his reputation.
Luck created by reputation
I thought the best phrase to illustrate this kind of Luck was “be so good that they can’t ignore you”. Yet after hearing Shaan say in many episodes of the podcast that he was not interested in being well known, but instead he wanted to be “known well”, I feel I should revise my initial phrase as such: “be so known well that they can’t ignore you”. The difference here is that I assume that you are not only good, but that many people *already* know that you are at that thing. Your reputation and distribution are so high that people come to you for exciting and lucrative opportunities.
For instance you could be a world class expert in reinforcement learning (a branch of AI) who gets approached by educational institutions, private companies, and governments alike to work on challenging and financially rewarding projects.
Personally, I am still trying to figure out what I should be known well for, so I don’t expect this Luck to come knocking down my door at this stage. I hope in the future that I can build a magnetic reputation around my unique skills and experiences though. I will just need to be a bit more patient in the meanwhile.
And you - what are you doing to become more lucky in life and business?
Thanks for reading this post! I share my learnings and progress while building my startup EnVsion! EnVsion enables UX professionals to share insights from user interview videos with their team to help them build products their customers need.
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