In hindsight, most successful entrepreneurs look smart. A common view is that visionary entrepreneurs scan the world around them. Because they practice “entrepreneurial alertness,” they are able to identify opportunities in the market, which they seize and turn into successful businesses.
While this is sometimes true, success often comes from luck. One of my favorite books about the role of luck in entrepreneurial success is Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck by Tjan, Harrington, and Hsieth. They argue that although preparation, knowledge, and courage are all critical, we cannot overlook the role of luck in many of our business successes.
In two recent posts, I highlighted the role of serendipity in the success of Ryan Pruitt and his cafe business, Frothy Monkey, and Gordon Droitcour’s ventures in the music industry.
In this post, I will focus on four more examples of the role of serendipity in entrepreneurial success. My new book, Entrepreneurial Voices, contains all six of these stories.
Common Side Hustles
Holly Rachel and Lena Winfree met each other at church. They both were pursuing entrepreneurial side businesses. Holly was working on a blog for haircare, and Lena was formulating hair products. They decided to connect to see if they could develop a haircare business together. Holly’s day job was working in the forensic sciences lab Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Lena helped create data interoperability between Nashville General Hospital and Meharry Medical College. Although it was their side businesses in haircare that brought them together, they soon realized that their day jobs were what created the best opportunity for them to form a business partnership consulting on technology and data issues in business.
Holly describes their realization this way:
We were thinking we were going to get some quick money and put it into our haircare business. It’s interesting how things kind of just start getting bigger and bigger. We realized a lot of people don’t know their data (Entrepreneurial Voices, p. 110).
A chance meeting in church and a shared interest in the haircare business led to the creation of a highly successful technology consulting firm!
COVID and Pickleball
Pickleball was a game for older folks when it first started gaining popularity. When I was still teaching college, I remember how students made fun of pickleball, comparing it to games like shuffleboard as something that their grandparents played. Pickleball then experienced a rather dramatic uptick in interest among younger players due to an unforeseen event: COVID. Young adults were no longer going into the office, meeting for beers after work, or going out to dinner with friends. They were stuck at home. Outdoor sports such as golf and tennis boomed during this time, allowing people to socialize within the governmental constraints imposed to combat COVID. And many of these young adults soon found that the game of their grandparents was a fun way to connect with friends during the lockdown.
Grace Moore, cofounder of Recess Pickleball, shared her experience when I interviewed her for my new book:
During COVID, people spent more time with family, and pickleball surfaced as a major trend. My husband and I loved the game. It allowed us to be outdoors, move our bodies, and be social and at a safe distance, which was crucial at that time. People all over the country got hooked and fell in love with pickleball (Entrepreneurial Voices, p. 113).
Grace and her partner Maggie Brown believed there was a need for pickleball equipment that fit the needs of this new demographic:
During COVID, we both played a lot of pickleball. We couldn’t find a single pickleball paddle that looked good. Everything was black and neon with dragons and volcanoes on it. We wanted to play with gear that matched our lifestyle and aesthetic (Entrepreneurial Voices, p. 113).
A global pandemic and drastic government policies led two friends to find a new passion and build a business based on that passion, which is still thriving today!
Chance Meeting Selling Shoes
A chance meeting in a shoe store led Skylar Faria into an industry he would never have dreamed of. Here’s how Skylar described it to me in our interview:
I’m working at Nordstrom. I was selling a pair of shoes, and a guy walked in with a 1980 College Baseball D-II World Series ring on. I was a part of the ’83 & ’85 world champion and runner up teams. He was older than I was. His name was Lance. I never knew him, but we kind of had that fraternal connection.
He said, “What are you doing here?”
And I said, “Well, hopefully, you’ll buy a pair of shoes.“ He was looking at a $240 pair of Allen Edmonds dress shoes. And I said, “What do you do?”
And he said, “I sell sandpaper. Skyler, there’s a position open in Southern California. You need to take it“ (Entrepreneurial Voices, p. 117).
This random encounter changed the trajectory of Skylar’s career. Eventually, Sylar had an opportunity drop into his lap to build his own company. A distressed family business was looking to sell. Skylar bought the business. His company, SurfPrep, is now an industry leader in innovation in sanding systems.
It all happened from a guy looking to buy a pair of shoes!
From Photography to Barbecue
Josh Gilreath had always known he wanted to be an entrepreneur. In high school, he started his first business in photography. He learned from his uncle, a well-known photographer in his hometown. Significant technological innovations in photography led to major disruptions, which left his business model behind. He then moved into construction, a business his parents had been in for many years. He had some success, but his heart was never really in the business.
Then, one weekend, Josh was at his parent’s house in Chattanooga. While at Walmart to pick up some chemicals for their pool, Josh eyed a smoker. He picked out an inexpensive one and made it an impulse purchase. He played around with it almost every weekend, developing his own rubs that he shared with friends and family.
When COVID hit, Josh found himself out of work and needing to make money. Josh described it this way:
We’ve got to kick this barbecue thing in the ass and figure out what the hell we’re going to do. It was a bonus having lost my job because the unemployment benefits helped bridge that gap for a couple of months and allowed me the freedom to figure out what we needed to do (Entrepreneurial Voices, p. 130)
Tennessee Rebel BBQ is another business serendipitously born out of the impact of COVID.
Serendipity
Although preparation and alertness are vital ingredients in entrepreneurial success, the role of luck should not be underestimated.
“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.“ (Jeff Bezos)