Evgeny, thanks for sharing your personal story here.
I understand that you see PM skillset as means to get you ready for becoming a founder one day. If you knew back in the day that you'd be focusing on web3, would you have focused on getting into blockchain industry first, or would you still have chosen to invest a few years in learning and honing your PM skillsets in established companies before getting into blockchain?
I'd like to dissociate this question from web3, if you will: I want to know if you'd rate a founder who's been in an industry and is learning how to build a great product more likely to succeed or a founder who's been a PM for a while in great product-led companies and is learning the ins-and-outs of a completely new industry they have not experienced before.
As with any good question, the answer starts with "it depends".
### Web3 and me: a bit of history
When I was starting my career in product, web3 wasn't a thing where a non-engineer could reasonably find a job. We've only seen an explosion of web3 startups in the past ~4 years.
### Assessing the founders
Let pretend that we're investors and we want to put X amount of dollars into one of two startups:
1. Startup A has a founder with deep domain expertise, but this founder lacks product and operational experience.
2. The founder of Startup B has technical or product expertise, but lacks domain experience.
In an ideal world the answer which startup gets the money has little to do with the founder's background, and everything to do with whether their skillset is sufficient to validate market demand for their product and then deliver it. (Can they attract the right talent to make up for gaps in skills? Can they manage this talent?)
Finally, this will also depend on the investment thesis of a venture capitalist.
(The real answer is much broader, and we'd need to touch on certain aspects of business strategy, including a thing called "cornered resource".)
So, the short answer is: great companies have been started by all kinds of founders. What makes those founders similar is their ability to focus on what they do best and to seek help when they need it.
Evgeny, thanks for sharing your personal story here.
I understand that you see PM skillset as means to get you ready for becoming a founder one day. If you knew back in the day that you'd be focusing on web3, would you have focused on getting into blockchain industry first, or would you still have chosen to invest a few years in learning and honing your PM skillsets in established companies before getting into blockchain?
I'd like to dissociate this question from web3, if you will: I want to know if you'd rate a founder who's been in an industry and is learning how to build a great product more likely to succeed or a founder who's been a PM for a while in great product-led companies and is learning the ins-and-outs of a completely new industry they have not experienced before.
Thank you for the fantastic question!
As with any good question, the answer starts with "it depends".
### Web3 and me: a bit of history
When I was starting my career in product, web3 wasn't a thing where a non-engineer could reasonably find a job. We've only seen an explosion of web3 startups in the past ~4 years.
### Assessing the founders
Let pretend that we're investors and we want to put X amount of dollars into one of two startups:
1. Startup A has a founder with deep domain expertise, but this founder lacks product and operational experience.
2. The founder of Startup B has technical or product expertise, but lacks domain experience.
In an ideal world the answer which startup gets the money has little to do with the founder's background, and everything to do with whether their skillset is sufficient to validate market demand for their product and then deliver it. (Can they attract the right talent to make up for gaps in skills? Can they manage this talent?)
Finally, this will also depend on the investment thesis of a venture capitalist.
(The real answer is much broader, and we'd need to touch on certain aspects of business strategy, including a thing called "cornered resource".)
So, the short answer is: great companies have been started by all kinds of founders. What makes those founders similar is their ability to focus on what they do best and to seek help when they need it.