Ask HN: Entrepreneur Excuse: "I dont have enough experience"?
I've been working on an IT-Sec company for some 6 months now, solo founding it. I recently met a guy at a networking event who advises startups - we met 1:1 for coffee, and then he sent me a really lengthy email basically being really frank on what I was doing.
I have a number of years of IT experience already (primarily in programming) and some IT-security (some of the experience hands-on out in the world)
He stated he thought that I:
" didn't have enough experience in the field I was creating a startup in"
"Go back into the working world for a number of years to gain more real world experience"
Do you have to BE AN EXPERT in a field to really make a nice dent in it?
Personally, I just think its noise more or less, but wanted some other opinions.
Thanks Wild stab from an idiot: it depends on what you're trying to do. Generally speaking, if you want to advance a field, or just do top-of-the-line work, you need to be an expert; but if you spot an ignored or underserved group of potential customers who could benefit greatly from a more basic implementation which the experts might find pedestrian and uninteresting, you might be on to something. In that case, your lack of expertise could even be a strength; you might understand you target group's difficulties better than the experts.