Over the past few weeks, I’ve started reading Leo Tolstoy’s works, particularly his novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina.” Finishing each chapter often has made me pause and reflect on what I’ve read.

Leo Tolstoy’s Novel Anna Karenina starts with the line: “All happy families are similar; each unhappy family is unhappy in its way.”

This simple quote carries quite a punch, leading to the maxim “The Anna Karenina Principle.”

In simple terms, success is due to the interplay of multiple factors. Trying to attribute it to one key element oversimplifies, hindering replication and hence failure.

We can see this play out in business as companies attempt to mimic others and fail. Failed attempts often mirror key success factors of winners but not entirely. Each failure introduces new reasons, and much like unhappy families, each has its own unique story.

Read interviews of Snapdeal or ShopClues founders you can see that in their heydays, they also did what was attributed to Flipkart or Amazon’s success in India back then.

So, when facing a decision to replicate an idea or service or scale a successful pilot project, scrutinize all possible factors for success. Otherwise, every replication attempt will introduce specific failure causes, similar to unhappy families’ discontent stemming from unique circumstances.