Yet, success is a very abstract concept. With that in mind I don't think that, in general, success is rare. Failure and success are both abundant. A single outcome can be a success and failure, depending on what is your baseline.
For example, when I built a small financial firm my goal was to build something cool AND get bloody rich. I failed on that. Yet, we have millions of customers right now. My dream of retiring before 30 to work for fun didn't work out.
This is what everyone always, consciously or unconsciously is trying. Taking a more scientific approach doesn't necessarily need to increase your chance.
The thing is: there is no pattern for success generation. This is against the nature of being exceptional. Stop seeking it.
Of the same idea is Alberto Savoia in his book about pretotyping, where he describes such a Law of Failure.
What one can do is try to fail faster and I very much suggest to read the book, it's for free: http://www.pretotyping.org/pretotype-it---the-book
Over night successes rarely happen. That's my issue with incubators. A lot of times they invest in potential overnight successes when they should really be investing in those most positioned for slow growth.
But it is needed anyway, apps ( specially on iOS ) do not get traction anymore by pure organic growth alone.
For example: Apple removed the new app list from iTunes, and the search take in account popularity, so a new launched app has zero visibility.
