How big a factor is luck in SaaS success stories?

We have all seen them. The seemingly overnight success stories within the SaaS space. Every time I hear about a new startup success story, I see a lot of people on Twitter saying that “That startup got lucky”. I don’t think that luck is the explanation in most cases.

It’s something else than luck

Here is a few things that we regularly mistake for pure luck when in reality it is something else.

• Timing
• Endurance
• The right people doing the right thing
• A good idea
• Excellent execution of said idea

If all you see is the success part of the story, it can very often look as it is pure luck. Sure, a founder can get lucky and hit all the sweet spots above without knowing what he/she is doing, but more often than not skill, will and timing is a big part of any success story.

Luck

But yet, most startup founders are lucky in some way. Lucky to have access to money or time or computers or connections. But that is not the kind of luck we are talking about here, the i-just-won-the-lottery type of luck.

Just try to create chances for luck to appear. The more chances you give your self, the more probable it will be for luck to appear. It is like hitting a hole in one on a golf course. You can do it in your first round, on your first hole. That is luck. But if you keep hitting good shots an play many rounds your chance of getting that one lucky shot increases manifold.