If someone’s starting a business in a field they have some expertise in themselves (and I wouldn’t recommend they do otherwise), it seems likely they’d know at least one suitable expert, or else know someone who knows one. And if not, they could try approaching people they don’t know out of the blue—I imagine some would be helpful enough to give free advice. (I do!)
Yes, definitely. The sparse nature of expertise networks in most areas still seems to really rear its head.
This isn’t to say it’s impossible. Like you say approaching people out of the blue is a good idea, and I can say with experience that it works! It’s just that (maybe?) there are greater barriers for these people.
It’s more a problem of finding entrepreneurial experts than it is in finding field experts. Imagine you have an idea for building a business that disrupts the Jiffy Lube’s of the world (I got my oil changed today) but you’re located in Montgomery County, KY with a population of 27k. You can likely easily find someone willing to give you ideas about how an auto repair shop works, but very unlikely that you’ll know of someone who, for example, knows how to start a franchising company, or do good market research, or how to find investors, or whatever.
Maybe this budding entrepreneur just shouldn’t be attempting to this. Maybe the budding entrepreneur should just be moving to whatever more urban areas is appropriate for their field. It’s just that I find all this a little unfortunate for all the areas that get drained of the best entrepreneurs.
If someone’s starting a business in a field they have some expertise in themselves (and I wouldn’t recommend they do otherwise), it seems likely they’d know at least one suitable expert, or else know someone who knows one. And if not, they could try approaching people they don’t know out of the blue—I imagine some would be helpful enough to give free advice. (I do!)
Yes, definitely. The sparse nature of expertise networks in most areas still seems to really rear its head.
This isn’t to say it’s impossible. Like you say approaching people out of the blue is a good idea, and I can say with experience that it works! It’s just that (maybe?) there are greater barriers for these people.
It’s more a problem of finding entrepreneurial experts than it is in finding field experts. Imagine you have an idea for building a business that disrupts the Jiffy Lube’s of the world (I got my oil changed today) but you’re located in Montgomery County, KY with a population of 27k. You can likely easily find someone willing to give you ideas about how an auto repair shop works, but very unlikely that you’ll know of someone who, for example, knows how to start a franchising company, or do good market research, or how to find investors, or whatever.
Maybe this budding entrepreneur just shouldn’t be attempting to this. Maybe the budding entrepreneur should just be moving to whatever more urban areas is appropriate for their field. It’s just that I find all this a little unfortunate for all the areas that get drained of the best entrepreneurs.