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Comment by Judgmentality | Hacker News Reader

Pebble took on enormous debt expecting their market to just keep growing. They had a great product, but they thought they had the next iPhone. They bet big, and they went bankrupt (basically the acquisition cost was just to cover the cost of debt).

https://qz.com/857412/pebble-went-from-kickstarter-to-being-...

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If you bet big, you may lose and eat the dust.

If you don't, and play cautiously, your competition will eat your market and starve you. You still eat the dust.

I just don't get it.

> I just don't get it.

Nobody likes to admit it, but luck is 99% of success.

It isn't just luck. It's knowing what markets to enter and what markets to avoid. Pebble entered a market adjacent to iPhone and where Apple was likely to move next. It wasn't Pebble's market to win, it was Apple's to lose.

It isn't just luck, far from it, but it is also luck. All the skill and determination in the world might not do you any good without some luck to come with it.

Of curse getting that skill and determination in the first place is largely luck based so there is that as well.

This is everywhere in life, luck is incredibly important. Everyone that is successful only see when they worked hard and were smart, not all the luck. Sure you need hard work and talent, but there are lies of people with that and no luck that fail or at least less successful.

It was unlucky that the android watch, pebble and fitbits failed compared to apple? I don’t think so. Apple tied the whole experience together with their phone and airpods. Smart watches don’t live in a silo.

Google failed because they’re google; they don’t understand UX.

Apple didn't win because they "tied the whole experience together". Apple won because they're Apple, and an Apple watch is a status symbol. My middle schooler was adamant about upgrading his Android phone to an iPhone last year, because all the cool kids had iPhones.

You can only punch so far above your weight before reality comes crashing in. On the flip-side, if you are a huge company, this new market might not be worth the distraction (amongst your existing priorities). But if you are just the right size, with the correct competencies, gaining traction in the market will not only be attractive but will be something the company is actually capable of achieving. Of course companies grow and shrink in their capacity, so that is the luck of the timing.

It doesn't seem that complex to me – Apple has sacks of cash and is quite good at integration, especially given their existing reach. Taking on hugely powerful incumbents is almost guaranteed to fail. We only remember the handful who beat the odds. I mean to me this is a rubbish way to organise a society, but hugely powerful incumbents think it's fine, so that's what we have for now.

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