Success is never an accident. Behind the creation of a hit, whether it’s a song or a new product brand, there is always a long, painstaking and systematic effort. But popularity can and should be predicted, says Allen Gannett, founder and CEO of TrackMaven.

To derive the formula for a successful idea, he talked to several hundred prominent people: businessmen, artists, scientists, and on the basis of this analysis he derived a number of regularities, following which one can predict the success of a product or project with a high degree of probability.