Miracle grow when planting or no?

A friend of mine who knows nothing about planting planted a seed in the garden at his house, and once it sprouted moved it to a different location, and it was growing fairly well until we abandonned it.

Now lately I've been planting seeds, yet none have even sprouted.

So why exactly did my friend's grow but mine won't?
He did no research, didn't germinate, and used miracle grow (which from what I understand shouldn't be added until the plant has established itself to avoid nute burn), while I have germinated, and avoided nute burn.
Any tips? Am I skipping some important step or something?

Maybe just unlucky i planted 5 seeds and left em on my kitchen windowsill and only one grew