Mom makes $65,000 per month online (headbands folks)

You defnitely raise some valid points in that the situations aren't perfectly analogous. Though I think they're more analogous than you give credit for:

1. There actually aren't fixed numbers of winners in the lottery. If 100 people pick the numbers 1-2-3-4-5 and those are the numbers drawn, 100 people win. There is, however, a fixed amount of prize money in a lottery -- which isn't necessarily the case in business. But even here, while on a macro-economic level business isn't necessarily a zero-sum game (due to increases in productivity, technological advances natural resource extraction, etc.), on a micro-economic level it often (though certainly not always) is. If I buy my sister a sweater for Christmas, I'm not likely to buy her a book. So in this case, if you're the clothes-seller, you win, if you run the bookshop you lose. Maybe if you're a really clever book seller you can convince me to buy the book too. But at some point, my consumption will stop -- there's only so much I'm going to be willing to spend on Christmas presents. It may not be a zero-sum game, but it's also not true that everyone can be a winner.
2. Your assumption that people can learn from successes definitely has truth to it. The problem is (a) this implies that people actually will learn (b) people will learn the right lessons and not the wrong ones (c) the right lessons that they learn will be applicable to their situation and (d) they'll have the skills and talent to take advantage of those learnings in meaningful ways. I don't doubt that this is a possible outcome, but is it a likely outcome? I'm not so sure. Even for lucky, talented few my guess the impact of this learning will be negligiable. According to Etsy's own research (see Etsy economic impact report: Etsy crafters generate $895 million in annual sales, but face low wages themselves.) 65% of sellers on Etsy make less than $100/year. (Yes! Finally! Real data!!!) So if they quintupled their income because of their knowledge they'd now make $500. Big deal.

Like I said initially, however, I do think you raise some valid points. My analogy was far from perfect. To me the biggest difference between the "online business lottery" and the California lottery is that people playing the former can influence the odds through hard work, skills and talent, whereas people playing the latter cannot. Even so, anyone who doesn't think luck doesn't play a role in entrepreneurism is delusional. A good entrepreneur -- like a good poker player -- knows how to take advantage of luck. But even the best poker player can't bluff all the time. At some point you need good cards.

I also think it's worth noting that much of the literature on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurism finds that the biggest shared characteristic among entrepreneurs is not, risk-taking, high skills or anything like that. It's overconfidence. As explained in one such study:

"[E]ntrepreneurs have a strong tendency to consider their situation as unique. After all, by definition, entrepreneurs are individuals who deviate from the norm. Once they identify a profit opportunity, they isolate their present situation, namely starting a new business, and treat it as an original and unrepeatable event. As a result, they neglect the available statistics of past and future similar situations that could help them to form more accurate forecasts of their likelihood of success." (Source: http://www.diw-berlin.de/documents/p...3372/dp501.pdf)

I'm not trying to be overly negative. Obviously, I believe in entrepreneurism or I wouldn't have jumped head first into those waters myself. But if I'm honest with myself, I probably do exhibit an overconfidence bias -- if I really think about it, my chances of success are probably lower than I want to believe (partly because I have fairly lofty goals).

Even so I think some degree of overconfidence is probably a good thing. Without some degree of hubris, we'd all likely suffer from a paralyzing fear of failure. But overconfidence can also lead to foolhardiness and so to me at least, if I have to make a choice between positivity and reality, reality will win every time.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful reply above!

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Mark