Is Luck the Secret to Building a Successful Business

So do you believe that luck plays a minimal factor or a major factor in business?

Major factor. I agree. I was with the meeting with Guy Kawasaki years and years ago. This is when he wrote—

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And his personal brand helped him become evangelist for Canva. He made a boatload of money from his Canva shares, right?

Has he cashed out from that? I mean, he's still— He's probably still—

he's already rich, but he'll, he'll, he'll be great from just his Canva shares as an advisor. Yeah. And it was early on. So when I was talking to Guy, and this was in his office back in the day where he had Garage Ventures, I don't know if he still does. And he was talking to me about entrepreneurship and he's like, you know, every time investors talk about investing in big TAMs, hard work, resilient entrepreneurs, he's like, these are all great things that you need. But he's like, if I had to pick one thing, if I could pick this one thing, he's like, I would pick luck every time. Because he's like, a lot of the companies that have done really well, it's luck. And I'll give you a great example of this. Recently, you saw Figma stock pop. No one knew it was going to pop that much. When you look at it just from a fundamental growth perspective, revenue, EBITDA perspective, I'm assuming you would agree they would struggle to sell for $30, $40 billion.

Majorly underpriced.

Their IPO.

So I agree.

No, no, no. But you agree right now the current valuation, if they went to the market beforehand to sell, they would struggle to sell for what they become valued at, $60 billion, $70 billion?

I don't know how much. I don't remember how much it popped by. A lot. That's all I remember.

Figma or no, that's not it. Figma stock. Figma Inc., $79. Market cap is $38 billion. Oh yeah, it's actually gone down a lot.

No, I think I saw— I searched Figma stock. I don't think that's the right one.

No, this is the right one. Are you sure? Inc. It's gone down a lot because I was, I was saying it was overpriced. Yeah. And because it came out like at $110 or something like that, then it went over $120 is what it looks like. The 52-week high is $142.92 according to Yahoo Finance. That's not double from where it is now, but you're looking at like a $60 billion company. Now Figma is worth $38 billion.

Wow. $122 billion.

You're right.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, no. If you look at the 52-week high, it's $142 billion. It's even higher. Wow. Again, don't know how accurate this is.

Yeah.

But all I'm getting at is some of it is luck. Like people who quickly sold at that price. I don't know if existing shareholders were locked in or what the deal was. I look at that as a lot of luck. It was overpriced. Figma was not worth $120. I don't think based on their revenue, this is not financial advice, they're worth $79 that it's trading at today.

You know, you look at Canva too, I'm looking at Canva. So 2021 valuation was $40 billion. And in 2022, obviously, you know, things dropped. So it went to $26 billion. And then 2024 secondary shares sold at a valuation of $26 billion. But recent secondary sales share Share sales, June 2025, $56 billion valuation, right? And the thing is, I've spoken to Melanie before on my podcast a long time ago, and the story with her with Canva, multi-billion dollar company, but she it took her a very long time to find the right idea. It also took her a very long time. A lot of investors said no.

Almost all of them did.

Yeah, and but she she kept going, right? So there there's element. I think it was a Chinese saying that luck is where opportunity meets preparation, but. You still have to work hard, but when you work hard, that means you're better prepared for when the opportunity hits, right?

Yes.

Some people get more opportunities than others. Like, that's something you can't control, but you can control how hard you work. And some people like to think, oh, it's because I'm so good. No, like, luck plays into it. And there's one thing from that Company and Giants book, all these Hewlett-Packard, or you have Steve Case, you have AOL, right? They're just like, no, like, luck played a major factor. I'm so lucky to be like, even when they achieved all the success, the billions and billions, the hundreds of millions that they got, they're just like, luck is a major factor. And we We both agree with it. I think if you're listening to this and you think that it comes down to you at the end, like it, a big part is you, but it's oftentimes things that are out of your control too. All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com/eric. to learn more and we'll see you on the other side.

I was speaking at an event yesterday and someone asked me what was the key to success for NP Digital? And I straight up said luck, not because we're talking about it, but I just coincidentally said luck and they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, I worked hard and built up my personal brand for, call it, you know, 15+ years, more than that, 17-ish+ years before I launched NP Digital. I didn't realize a personal brand was going to help me.

You didn't know?

Yeah. I was like, it was luck that I did it early on and I just kept doing it. And then I was like, and then, and you know, some of the story, got Nick Roshan, got lucky there.

He's great.

He's great.

Critical hire. I think Mike is critical too. Mike Kamo.

Yes. My co-founder is really good. But then Nick got us JJ, which, you know, JJ's no longer with us, but JJ got us Mike G, our CEO, Mike Olexen. which a lot of it was luck. If I never had Nick, I would've never got JJ. If I never had JJ, I would've never had Mike Gullickson. And then Mike brought a lot of amazing people and then we brought, we also recruited tons of amazing people globally outside of those 2 as well. But a lot of it was just timing and luck. Yeah.

I'll give you an example too, and then we can move on from this. But recently I had a former employee reach out, so he's moved on to do his own thing. He reached out, he's like, hey, how did you find like the CTO that you have? Right? I was like, it was luck. Like, I can't replicate this because it's like, Yes, I invested in his last startup. Yes. Like to meet him, I met Steve from Pray.com. Okay. And to meet this, the CTO, it was— I got invited to a dinner from a guy that I met from Miami. And then Steve couldn't make it. Steve was sick. And then so he subbed this guy in. And so the moment this guy subbed in, I was like, oh, I invested in his company. I'm like, I'm not even going to talk to these other people at this dinner. It's like a very LA dinner, right? You had some influencers there. I didn't give a crap about the other people. I just started talking to him. And then before you knew it, like we just kept testing for 6, 8 months or so. And then we realized we worked really well together. And that's how that happened. I was like, you can't replicate that. That was being very lucky. But it's like I had to be at the right place at the right time in so many different situations. Yeah, same for you.

But you have to take the opportunity and seize it and actually go to those meetings and do the things that don't work out. And one of them potentially may hit.

Yeah. Yeah. You just never know. So luck is a major factor. I think Neil and I are extremely fortunate in our lives.