"If it works for them, it might work for me!"
ANOTHER DAY—ANOTHER STARTUP INSIGHT
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Let’s be real.
We’ve all seen it.
You scroll past a post on LinkedIn or Instagram: "I quit my job, launched this thing in a weekend, and now I make $30K/month while I sleep."
Or maybe your friend swears by a “miracle diet” they found on TikTok, and suddenly they’ve lost 20 pounds and gained a new personality.
Or a YouTube video titled: “How I built a 7-figure business with no funding and no team!”
And for a moment, you think:
“Maybe I should do that too.”
If it worked for them, maybe it’ll work for me.
It’s a perfectly human reaction—and also one of the riskiest ways we make decisions.
The seductive power of stories
I’ve been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. And one thing that stood out to me is how our brains are wired to love and trust stories over statistics.
We feel a compelling story.
We relate to it.
It makes things seem simple and attainable.
Daniel Kahneman calls it narrative fallacy—the tendency to create a story to make sense of what happened, regardless of the actual data behind it.
So when someone tells us, “I built this business in 3 months and now I travel the world,” our brain latches on.
But here’s the trap: we remember the story, not the probability.
The truth?
We rarely hear the other 90% of the stories—the ones that didn’t end in a TED Talk or a viral thread.
90% of startups fail.
Most viral launches never sustain revenue.
Most creators make less than $500/month.
Most people who start miracle diets rebound in a few months.
But we don’t talk about most.
Our minds don’t register those outcomes because …
They’re not sexy.
They don’t make headlines.
They don’t get clicks.
We obsess over …
The few who win.
The unicorns.
The underdogs-turned-legends.
Anecdotes vs. Evidence
In behavioral science, there’s a name for this: availability bias.
It means we tend to overestimate the importance of information that’s readily available—like a dramatic success story—and underestimate the broader context or statistical reality.
Here’s a fun (and slightly depressing) fact:
You are more likely to be struck by lightning than win the lottery.
In fact, you’re 300 times more likely!
And yet, we still buy lottery tickets—because someone wins, right?
That’s how we treat startup stories too.
We all love outliers’ stories:
The girl who launched a Notion template that made $100K.
The guy who built an AI tool in a weekend and got acquired.
But those are the exceptions. Not the rule.
The problem with stories like those isn’t that they’re false—it’s that they’re incomplete.
You don’t see:
The founder’s 10 years of experience before the overnight success
Their pre-existing audience of 50,000+ followers
The dozens of failed ideas before this one
The funding, luck, or timing that isn’t replicable
We forget that a replicable strategy is very different from a viral anecdote.
If we let those stories become our strategies, we risk building castles on clouds.
And when you try to build a business based on something that “just worked” for someone else, you’re not building a company—you’re buying a lottery ticket!
The startup world is built on survivor bias, and the hidden cost of copying success stories
Let’s bring this home for founders.
The truth is, most startups fail. Around 90% don’t make it. That’s not just a number—it’s a reality check.
But think about what dominates your feed:
YC success stories
$1M MRR tweets
Founders who “scaled with no team and no funding”
Posts saying “I just launched this thing yesterday and woke up to 400 signups”
That’s survivor bias in action. We only hear from the people who made it.
Here’s a truth most startup media won’t tell you:
For every “overnight success” you see, there are hundreds of founders quietly quitting, pivoting, or burning out in the background.
The five other projects that failed before this one worked
The emotional burnout behind that success
The handshake on Shark Tank turns out to be a rejection after due diligence
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start something—but it does mean you should approach the process realistically, not romantically.
Just because one person built a successful DTC brand through influencer seeding doesn’t mean that strategy works today.
Just because someone launched a successful AI tool doesn’t mean the world needs your ChatGPT wrapper.
In fact, what made them succeed may have already expired as a strategy.
So what should founders do instead?
Here’s a better way to think about decision-making—whether it’s about launching, hiring, pivoting, or raising money.
1. Look for patterns, not one-offs
One story isn’t useful. Ten stories in a row? That’s a pattern.
Example:
If one founder builds a million-dollar business in a niche, it could be luck.
But if you see multiple companies thriving in that same niche, that’s signal.
Zoom out. Study industries, not individuals.
Look at multiple case studies, not one thread.
2. Validate with data, not vibes
What does the market say?
What are customers actually struggling with?
Can you test your idea with $100 and a landing page first?
Make decisions based on user behavior, not just a single Reddit thread that says “this is the next big thing.”
3. Talk to real people, not just success case studies
Instead of only studying winners, talk to people who’ve shut things down, pivoted, or taken an L.
Ask them what they wish they had done differently. That’s gold.
4. Remember: Probability > Possibility
Yes, anything is possible. But not everything is probable.
Your job as a founder is not to chase what’s possible, but to increase the odds of success with each move—like running experiments, talking to users, iterating based on feedback.
That’s how real businesses are built.
A personal note—I’ve fallen for the story too!
I’ll be honest—I’ve fallen for this before.
I once built a product because I saw someone post, “I made $5K in a weekend doing this.”
I spent weeks building, refining, designing.
You can guess how it ended: crickets …
What I didn’t realize was that …
They was already an influencer
Their audience was already primed
Their pricing was a result of positioning
Their offer was tested before launch
Mine wasn’t.
It wasn’t a strategy—it was just a story I liked.
I learned the hard way:
If you copy the output without understanding the input, you’ll miss what made it work.
Final thought: make peace with boring
I’m gonna hold your hands when I say this …
Sometimes, the smartest path forward doesn’t make a good tweet.
It’s unsexy.
It’s slow.
It’s validating a niche problem.
Talking to 20 users.
Shipping v0.1 with zero followers.
Failing, adjusting, and repeating.
But boring builds.
It’s not as fun as “how I made $10K in a week.”
But it’s more honest—and more repeatable.
So the next time someone justifies their decision with “well, it worked for me,” take a breath!
And remember: One story isn’t a strategy.
Build based on what’s most likely to work—not just what might.
That’s how you give your startup the best shot.
Hope this helps!
THANKS FOR READING!
- Gracie from What A Startup
love your sharing !