[nmdeadhead]

Perhaps building a start-up is more like finishing the Hardrock 100[1]. Unless you get extremely lucky, it takes years of work just to qualify to get into the lottery. It then takes a lot of persistence and failures in the lottery to get to the starting line. If you're not prepared at the starting line you probably won't finish and even if you are prepared there's room for a lot of luck (both good and bad) to affect your chances.

However, unlike finishing Hardrock, it's certainly possible to successfully launch a start-up without exercising. However, the few times I tried it that way I crashed and burned. I strongly suspect exercise might have pulled me through although to be fair there are tons of other things I did wrong that had I done right might have led to greater success.

[1]https://www.hardrock100.com/