This week’s reflection is about a rough formula for startup success that I encountered via a podcast. While venture-backed startups now form a large portion of my practice, the formula illustrates a broader principle that impacts other businesses and life more generally.

The formula is this: Idea x Product x Team x Execution x Luck. Your idea includes things like the size of the target market, the growth strategy, and how well you will be able to stave off competition. Your product is your physical product or service, but it is also the entire customer experience. Your team are the few people who are in the trenches with you every day trying to build the business. Execution is probably the most important element, as great execution can overcome a lot of problems. Just don’t work to perfectly execute something that no one wants to buy—do some market research first and talk to your customers regularly. Each of these items warrants its own exposition, but this post is about the final variable in the formula.

Luck is the one thing that is out of your control. The lecturer opined that luck could be any number between 0 and 10,000 and this is entirely at random. One may quibble with the numbers, but that would miss the point. Events completely outside your control can wipe you out (or allow you to find undeserved success). It is a reminder that the stoics were onto something all those years ago—you can only control what you can control and you have to accept the rest.

I have had my own lessons in stoicism in business offered by some rotten luck. In my prior law firm, I miscalculated the size of the potential market and how difficult it would be to gain traction. Those things are undeniable and self-inflicted errors. It is also true that I was starting to find my feet in January and February of 2020 and that maybe I was going to stumble my way into something that worked. Then the world shut down. And that was that. I am in a better place now with a fresh start in a growing business in a new city, but that wasn’t the easiest time. I learned a lot, both about how business really works and about myself. Taking lessons from that time was all I could do; nothing was going to change the fact that the business model I had been striving towards could not work amidst shutdowns.

I know I am not the only one who has experienced something like this. Your experience may not have been COVID-related, but that difference is immaterial. The important thing is the perspective you have while living events and then reflecting upon them. There is nothing to be done about external events. Take the time to reflect on how you managed the things you could control, evaluate how you might change your decision-making process, and move forward to the next thing. Hard though it may be, that is the only option. So best of luck to you my readers, and keep your heads high when the dice don’t roll your way.