

Ask HN: acquiring expertise in a field in order to start a startup? - opticks1

I started Physics grad school this Fall, but I have recently considered dropping out in order to find a job in industry (I'd like to work at a startup). I know this could look really bad to employers, but I just have no motivation to continue my studies<p>Recently I've been working on a programming project on my own (a sort of video game), as a way to improve my programming skills, and I've been working on it with alot more motivation than studying for my Physics classes. I'm still fairly new to programming so I can't say I'm committed to programming over Physics yet<p>Anyways, the semester is almost over and I have to make a decision soon as to whether to move back home (Los Angeles) or stay in Austin to find a job. After reading Paul Graham's essays, I think I'm willing to take the risks involved in running my own business, or at least joining someone else's startup.<p>But my programming skills aren't that great. Most startups do not interest me (I'm not interested in Iphone apps, social networking, etc). But analytics seems pretty interesting.<p>Startups are usually done by people who are already very talented in a field of expertise. The problem is that I would like to get that expertise in some business area so I can then start my own business. That is why I would like to get some kind of programming job in a business that I think I would like enough that I can become an expert in it (ie Analytics). Therefore, I see myself as wasting time by staying in grad school.<p>The question I'm dealing with is whether it really is worth it to stay in Austin to try to find an Analytics startup (however, I haven't seen many job listings online for analytics startups), or just go back to LA and work for an analytics non-startup?
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coryl
Industry expertise is certainly an advantage and attractive to investors, but
by no means is a prerequisite for success. There are lots of other very
important and influential factors in a startup's success other than your
industry background.

For example, I actually interned at an analytics startup in the facebook
gaming space (they now sell an analytics suite to game developers). The
company originally started out producing god knows what hardware devices, then
transitioned to making apps for Facebook. In the midst of making apps, they
found that there was a need for a different type of analytics system
(traditional web analytics models are pageview centric, and don't work well
with "social", which is now regarded as user/cohorted user class centric). So
once again they pivoted and developed an analytics platform for the facebook
platform.

I don't believe anyone on the core team had any analytics experience, but they
were all super smart and ambitious. It was a market and timing opportunity,
and they got started by solving a problem they themselves faced on a daily
basis.

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jefflinwood
Take a look at the job title "Data Scientist" if you're interested in
analytics and see if there any companies that are doing other things that you
could help out with analytics. You might be able to get an internship for next
semester, stay in school, and then make a decision in May.

jobs in austin from Indeed:
[http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=data+scientist&l=austin%2Ct...](http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=data+scientist&l=austin%2Ctx)

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sebg
Do the following things 1) find a startup meetup on meetup.com in your area 2)
find 3 startups you want to work with/for 3) start a blog where you interview
people from those startups to a) provide them free links to their website b)
to learn how they think and c) to chat with them.

~~~
glimcat
1\. Find people who know things you want to know.

2\. Have coffee with them.

3\. Repeat.

