You know a startup is likely to fail when its product strategy or business plan includes multiple miracles. What Is A Startup Miracle? A startup miracle is the key difficult thing you need to pull off for your startup to work. It could be hitting product/market fit, a key business deal, a specific regulatory change, or the like. If your startup needs zero miracles to work, it probably isn't a defensible startup. If your startup needs multiple miracles, it probably isn't going to work - with every miracle, you are multiplying in another low probability event to get an even smaller expected outcome.