You need some luck to build a billion dollar business. You just need work ethic and persistence to build a million dollar business. And I would suggest that anyone who looks down their nose at the latter has never owner a million dollar business.
I think you need more than just work ethic and persistence to build even a million dollar business. Those things help you with execution, but you also need a decent idea that is valuable to others and also motivating and exciting to you.
For a million dollar business, just pick any existing million-dollar business, and execute well. Consulting shop, restaurant, laundromat, etc. Billion-dollar companies need brilliant ideas and new paradigms, million dollar ones work very well with decades-old ideas.
