As I have an ever-growing number of conversations with early-to-mid-stage Founders and CEOs, there’s an obvious pattern that’s emerging. Somewhere along the way, while telling the story of their startup, something gets chalked up to “catching a lucky break.” While I see value in the humility behind these statements, I think it’s important to realize that a lot was accomplished in order to allow “luck” to play a role.

In a startup, you should never discount or distrust something you perceive as “luck” or “a lucky break.” Even more-so than well-established businesses, if you’ve had the opportunity to experience so called “luck”, you did several things to kick off the chain of events leading up to it.

With the perspective of someone looking from the outside in, there’s so much that startups accomplish through sheer brute force. Throwing a bunch of blood, sweat, and tears (because capital and bodies are harder to come by) can accomplish a lot; and it’s more apparent how something was achieved when it was done by unmitigated force of will.

The lack of having to engage in exerting super-human force to make something happen, is often misconstrued and dismissed as luck. But, consider all of the planning, implementation, revising, iterating, and reworking that preceded your good fortune. Make no mistake, anything that happens to your startup that’s disguised as luck, is actually the confluence of a myriad of smart decisions, integrations, and a lot of hard work.

If you’d like to discuss how to build, grow, and operationalize your business in a strategic and viable way, feel free to email me. I’m happy to see if I can help!