What you said is absolutely correct. It's hard for a project to succeed in the short term. Not too many bounty hunters can stick with a project because they don't have enough money to maintain it. Besides, a successful project takes many years and at first they often face many difficulties.
If the project has already gotten a lot of hype and the success can be reached instantly. It's not impossible for the project to be a major platform in less than a year and you should see the reality if everything depends on the project development itself.