- Moving faster than others and creating more opportunities increases the chances of getting lucky in business.
- Examples of startups like Brex, Retool, and Magic show how quickly changing ideas and iterating can lead to success.
- Creating luck as a pre-company involves knowing and learning from interesting people, and doing uncomfortable things.
- Mark Zuckerberg's history with Facebook shows the importance of constantly creating and sharing prototypes.
- Knowing when to double down on strengths or go outside of one's expertise depends on the specific situation.
- Continuing to move fast, experiment, and hire fast-moving employees can create luck for series A or later companies.

Dalton Caldwell, Y Combinator partner and founder of imeem and Mixed Media Labs, on how to create luck.

https://twitter.com/daltonc

Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year. 

Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/

I'm Dalton, I'm a partner at Y Combinator.

I was the founder of a company called iMeme in 2003, and a company called Mixed Media Labs in 2010.

The way to create luck is to move much faster than everyone else and to give yourselves as many opportunity for that lucky thing to happen to you.

So say that everyone is running at 5 miles an hour.

Imagine that you're able to run at 15 miles an hour.

And so if you're a startup that's moving really fast, it gives you more opportunities to talk to more customers, to change your idea more often, to write code more quickly.

Everything gets way easier if you've moved much faster.

And So we've seen the founders that get the luckiest are actually the founders that move the fastest to give them as much surface area as possible to get super lucky.

1 example of course is Brex, which is the credit card for a startup's company that's been doing extremely well.

When we initially funded them, it was for a completely different idea.

And if the founders weren't lucky, they would have worked on that idea, realized it wasn't going to work, and given up.

And the way they got lucky is they realized very quickly that that idea wasn't gonna work, probably a month or 2 into the batch, probably like 6 weeks, and decided to change ideas.

And they didn't decide just about 1 idea to change to, they iteratively went through half a dozen or more different ideas and very quickly talked to all the world's experts about their other ideas and were able to cross them off the list as being good ideas.

And so by doing this really fast process really quickly during the batch, they zeroed in on what became Brex very quickly, right?

And so if they were way slower moving and they weren't creating luck for themselves, the odds were definitely, it was definitely the case that that company was not gonna work.

I've seen other companies do the same thing, the same thing for Retool, where they had to change ideas and they moved very quickly to find a much better idea.

Also a company called Magic did the same thing that I worked with, where they originally were funded to do something completely different.

And they moved so fast at going through different ideas and actually building full prototypes of the ideas and even launching the ideas to customers, they got lucky and found an idea that really took off.

And so that's how they, all of those companies dramatically increased the surface area of luck.

If you were pre-company, how do you create luck?

It's to know as many interesting people as possible, and to learn from as many interesting people as possible.

And I think another way you can create luck is to do things that make you super uncomfortable.

And so I think a lot of the times, founders that may not get as lucky, just stay at home and they wait for the world to come to them and they wait to be recognized for their secret genius.

Whereas the folks that are able to create luck just go out there and interact with people and tell other people about their ideas.

A great example of this is if you look at the history of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was constantly creating prototypes and giving them to users.

He was creating like music plugins for Winamp.

Like he was always just kind of making stuff and giving it to people.

And that was the surface area by which the genesis of Facebook was created was he was just kind of like making stuff.

And so you can dramatically increase the chance that you will get lucky if you just make things, you learn how to make things really fast, you learn how to make things by yourself or with other people that are interesting, and you give them to other people.

And if you just do that a lot, things start happening for you, is what I've noticed in life.

When do you know when to double down on your strengths versus to go outside of what you know.

So for instance, if you know literally nothing about science and you know nothing about biology and you decide you want to cure cancer with your startup, That's a pretty tall order.

Maybe it's possible, I can't say impossible, but the odds that you will get super lucky creating a cure for cancer as someone as a complete outsider does not feel like playing to your strengths.

On the other hand, sometimes it's the case where experts in a space are very uninterested and give up on anything in the space.

And it takes sort of an outsider's philosophy to be able to see the greatness in it.

And so maybe the delineation is if you have the technical skills to build the product you want to build, then I think it's okay to get in way over your head.

But if you have absolutely no relevant skills and you're trying to break into something that requires technical skills, I think you're gonna have a pretty hard time.

I think the way that you create luck when you're series A or later is by continuing to move really fast and having a culture of fast-moving experimentation.

And also to hire people that move so fast that they get lucky too, right?

Like if you're a very fast-moving founder and you continue to hire people that are able to iterate through ideas very quickly and have this culture of getting more done in a set amount of time than most people would not be able to, that's how you you


Speaker 0: I'm Dalton, I'm a partner at Y Combinator. I was the founder of a company called iMeme in 2003, and a company called Mixed Media Labs in 2010. I've been working at YC since 2013. Okay, how do you create luck? The way to create luck is to move much faster than everyone else and to give yourselves as many opportunity for that lucky thing to happen to you.

So say that everyone is running at 5 miles an hour. Imagine that you're able to run at 15 miles an hour. You can run circles around everyone. And so if you're a startup that's moving really fast, it gives you more opportunities to talk to more customers, to change your idea more often, to write code more quickly. Everything gets way easier if you've moved much faster.

And So we've seen the founders that get the luckiest are actually the founders that move the fastest to give them as much surface area as possible to get super lucky. 1 example of course is Brex, which is the credit card for a startup's company that's been doing extremely well. When we initially funded them, it was for a completely different idea. It was for a VR headset idea. And if the founders weren't lucky, they would have worked on that idea, realized it wasn't going to work, and given up.

And the way they got lucky is they realized very quickly that that idea wasn't gonna work, probably a month or 2 into the batch, probably like 6 weeks, and decided to change ideas. And they didn't decide just about 1 idea to change to, they iteratively went through half a dozen or more different ideas and very quickly talked to all the world's experts about their other ideas and were able to cross them off the list as being good ideas. And so by doing this really fast process really quickly during the batch, they zeroed in on what became Brex very quickly, right? And so if they were way slower moving and they weren't creating luck for themselves, the odds were definitely, it was definitely the case that that company was not gonna work. And so they did that.

I've seen other companies do the same thing, the same thing for Retool, where they had to change ideas and they moved very quickly to find a much better idea. Also a company called Magic did the same thing that I worked with, where they originally were funded to do something completely different. And they moved so fast at going through different ideas and actually building full prototypes of the ideas and even launching the ideas to customers, they got lucky and found an idea that really took off. And so that's how they, all of those companies dramatically increased the surface area of luck. If you were pre-company, how do you create luck?

It's to know as many interesting people as possible, and to learn from as many interesting people as possible. And I think another way you can create luck is to do things that make you super uncomfortable. And so I think a lot of the times, founders that may not get as lucky, just stay at home and they wait for the world to come to them and they wait to be recognized for their secret genius. Whereas the folks that are able to create luck just go out there and interact with people and tell other people about their ideas. They build things.

A great example of this is if you look at the history of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was constantly creating prototypes and giving them to users. He was creating like music plugins for Winamp. He was making hacks for his friends. Like he was always just kind of making stuff and giving it to people. And that was the surface area by which the genesis of Facebook was created was he was just kind of like making stuff.

And so you can dramatically increase the chance that you will get lucky if you just make things, you learn how to make things really fast, you learn how to make things by yourself or with other people that are interesting, and you give them to other people. You don't just hide them to yourself. And if you just do that a lot, things start happening for you, is what I've noticed in life. So I would definitely recommend that. When do you know when to double down on your strengths versus to go outside of what you know.

I think you can go both ways on that. So for instance, if you know literally nothing about science and you know nothing about biology and you decide you want to cure cancer with your startup, That's a pretty tall order. Maybe it's possible, I can't say impossible, but the odds that you will get super lucky creating a cure for cancer as someone as a complete outsider does not feel like playing to your strengths. On the other hand, sometimes it's the case where experts in a space are very uninterested and give up on anything in the space. And it takes sort of an outsider's philosophy to be able to see the greatness in it.

And so maybe the delineation is if you have the technical skills to build the product you want to build, then I think it's okay to get in way over your head. But if you have absolutely no relevant skills and you're trying to break into something that requires technical skills, I think you're gonna have a pretty hard time. I think the way that you create luck when you're series A or later is by continuing to move really fast and having a culture of fast-moving experimentation. And also to hire people that move so fast that they get lucky too, right? Like if you're a very fast-moving founder and you continue to hire people that are able to iterate through ideas very quickly and have this culture of getting more done in a set amount of time than most people would not be able to, that's how you you

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How to Create Luck - Dalton Caldwell, Y Combinator Partner