Play in 'Unfamiliar' ground?

 Typically you would hear many folks starting up in an area of their experience. Ex Amazon employees starting Flipkart, Marketing folks starting up marketing tech startups, Ex tech company employees starting up another tech start up …. You get the picture.

The logic for doing this seems reasonable. You are in ‘ familiar ground’, you know the play, players, nuts and bolts. You will sound credible when you pitch your idea to future employees and investors. There is more ‘plausibility’ of it going right.

Here is the tricky part. Its ultimately a business which has to thrive on someone ( an individual or a business) parting their hard earned money for whatever you plan to offer. And they will do it ONLY if it solves a good enough problem or brings signicantly more value than the current options.

The tricky part is, just because your credentials are in a particular area, ‘must not’ mean that

• there is a huge problem there waiting to be solved or ( opportunity)
• the current solvers are not ‘good enough’ or that ( competition)
• there is a dramatically new way to solve the problem. ( reimagination)

Be willing to let go off the familiar ground, if you cannot satisfy the above. Remember, you dont control most of the above. On the other hand, you identify an area that meets the above criteria and its not where your past ‘credentials’ are, there is still an opportunity!

Do not let the familiarity dominate the business case. It may not be a ‘business case’ in the first place!