
Is success down to the quality of your work? - open-source-ux
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/08/success-quality-of-work/
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CM30
Among other things yes. The big mistake people make is assuming it's the only
factor (or perhaps the most important one).

However, I'd say another important factor here is simple timing. Does the
world want what you're offering at that point in time?

Cause if your chosen programming language went out of fashion a decade ago or
your idea simply doesn't make sense any more, it's probably not going to make
you successful. So many successful people, services and websites only caught
on because they offered something that the world was looking for at just the
right time.

For example, Google was revolutionary, with its search engine making the
company/its founders billions of dollars. But to much of an extent, it also
only did as well as it did because other search engines were so terrible at
the time.

If someone else had gotten in first (like say, if modern DuckDuckGo or Bing
had been around in the 90s), then it's possible the site would have faded into
obscurity.

Same goes with a lot of things. If the telegraph or fax machine had been
invented after email, they'd be obsolete before they even launched and be
massive commercial failures for their creators. True of many YouTube creators
too. How many became popular because they rode trends? I'd say thousands of
them.

Success is certainly partly down to the quality of your work and how you
promote it, but it's also down to whether you happen to offer something that
society wants at the time you offer it. Both luck and skill play into it
there.

