From Expertise to Tech Product
Turn your professional expertise into a tech product
We talk with a lot of aspiring founders. Most won’t make it. But there’s one group we’ve seen have more success than others—we call them expert founders. They aren’t necessarily experts at being founders, but they are experts in their field and the problem they set out to solve. They spin a tech company out of their personal and professional expertise. This provides a solid foundation for the business.
Examples include:
- Paul Edelman founded Teachers Pay Teachers after a four year stint as a public school teacher in New York City.
- Chris Damico founded Farm’d after years in the food service and food supply industries. (Shoutout to Atlanta Tech Village!)
- Naval Ravikant founded AngelList after years as a serial entrepreneur.
So why do these founders have a leg up on others who don’t have the same expertise and experience?
Industry Knowledge
Every industry has a unique set of understandings, processes, terminology, and even culture. It’s incredibly valuable to be ‘fluent’ in a certain industry. And beyond the straightforward ability to talk to the talk, these founders often have a sense of how the industry has evolved. They don’t just understand the way the industry is today, but how and why it got there. This gives them the ability to more intuitively navigate big decisions as the company grows.
Established Relationships
This might be the biggest, most immediate leg up for founders of spinoff startups. Leveraging existing relationships provides the ability to open doors that outsiders wouldn’t even be able to crack. This allows startups to work toward clarity and traction much more quickly, as they acquire partners, customers, and feedback at a much more rapid rate.
Empathy
Many of these founders start their company for a simple reason—they were really frustrated by a problem nobody had solved. Or if they didn’t personally experience it, they watched their customers experience it over and over again. Either way, the problem hits close to home and is well understood by the founder. They can easily put themselves in the shoes of their ideal customer.
Being an expert founder clearly has it’s advantages, but there are a few drawbacks and dangers as well.
Unchecked Biases
Although the founders have a deep understanding and level of empathy for their customers, they often bring their own biases as well. Perhaps they think because they experienced a certain problem in a certain way, so did everyone else. Without an awareness of biases and willingness to constantly test assumptions, a founder could lead his or her company down the wrong path.
Wrong Business Mentality
Many founders coming from established careers fail to understand a fundamental part of their business—they are no longer running a traditional industry business, they are running a tech business. This lack of understanding often creates friction and hinders growth.
Willing to Settle
Not every founder falls into this trap, and it’s not always a weakness. Perhaps a founder built a product primarily to supplement his or her main business. In this situation, any ability to license or sell the product is icing on the cake.
Other founders have larger aspirations. They want to build it and scale. But even these founders often have an easy eject button, especially if they are coming from a successful career. With a more comfortable career to fall back into, it’s easier for founders to grow complacent and be okay with failure. The grass might look greener on the other, less technical side. (note: sometimes ‘failure’ is the best option for a startup and that is okay!)
At the end of the day, industry expertise is only one of many factors that contributes to success as a founder. Startups are hard. Most will fail, regardless of the founders prior expertise or experience. But founders who build on top of their expertise certainly have a leg up and a more solid foundation.
If you are an expert founder, don’t take that for granted. Use your knowledge and relationships to propel you to build something remarkable.
If you are a founder without prior industry expertise, this article is not saying you can’t disrupt an unfamiliar industry—that happens all the time! However, it does mean you’ve got your work cut out for you. Go forge connections, understand your customer, and build a product people want!
