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"If you don't have domain expertise, how would you know whether the product you want to create solves anyone's problem? How would you know who your competitors

"If you don't have domain expertise, how would you know whether the product you want to create solves anyone's problem? How would you know who your competitors will be?" Most successful founders/ startups solve problems that they themselves have as opposed to having tons of domain experience. The key is to identify your early adopters and understand their needs and provide a unique solution so they'll stick.

greenyoda 12y ago
Even if you're solving a problem that you have yourself, you need to learn enough about the domain to know whether the problem you have is: (1) shared by enough other people so that the solution could be sold enough times to be profitable (which also requires knowing whether these people would actually be willing to spend money on your solution). Identifying a small group of early adopters is no guarantee that your product will gain traction beyond that initial group. (2) not just due to ignorance of an already existing solution (e.g., the original poster may not have known that every online brokerage already provides tools to compare mutual funds, and that his problem has already been solved). The more you know about your domain, the less of a chance you have of spending a huge amount of effort to develop a product that nobody wants to use. You could argue that even if there's no market for your solution, you've still built something to solve your own problem. But the amount of effort needed to build a tool that solves your specific problem is much less than the effort needed to build and support a tool that others can use easily (how useful to you is the average undocumented project on Github?).
- pskittle 12y ago
  "Even if you're solving a problem that you have yourself, you need to learn enough about the domain to know whether the problem you have is" Yes! you need to know enough to be able to solve it but not necessarily a PhD. Additionally the question was how much domain knowledge you need.Id still say enough to start , the rest can be learnt on the fly. identifying the early adopters doesn't guarantee that you will have enough traction however it will tell you more about the different problems/needs that could be fulfilled and could help you in identifying revenue sources , possible partnerships etc. Also most of these successful people talk about building something a few people love and focussing on that as opposed to creating a product that everyone will use sparsely

greenyoda 12y ago

Even if you're solving a problem that you have yourself, you need to learn enough about the domain to know whether the problem you have is: (1) shared by enough other people so that the solution could be sold enough times to be profitable (which also requires knowing whether these people would actually be willing to spend money on your solution). Identifying a small group of early adopters is no guarantee that your product will gain traction beyond that initial group. (2) not just due to ignorance of an already existing solution (e.g., the original poster may not have known that every online brokerage already provides tools to compare mutual funds, and that his problem has already been solved). The more you know about your domain, the less of a chance you have of spending a huge amount of effort to develop a product that nobody wants to use. You could argue that even if there's no market for your solution, you've still built something to solve your own problem. But the amount of effort needed to build a tool that solves your specific problem is much less than the effort needed to build and support a tool that others can use easily (how useful to you is the average undocumented project on Github?).

pskittle 12y ago
"Even if you're solving a problem that you have yourself, you need to learn enough about the domain to know whether the problem you have is" Yes! you need to know enough to be able to solve it but not necessarily a PhD. Additionally the question was how much domain knowledge you need.Id still say enough to start , the rest can be learnt on the fly. identifying the early adopters doesn't guarantee that you will have enough traction however it will tell you more about the different problems/needs that could be fulfilled and could help you in identifying revenue sources , possible partnerships etc. Also most of these successful people talk about building something a few people love and focussing on that as opposed to creating a product that everyone will use sparsely