Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it?

#21

Post by marcus » Sat, May 31, 2008, 3:39 PM UTC

If there is an industry that interests you, go to a few trade shows in that industry space, you can meet the key companies, see demos of all the latest things, learn the lingo and so on.

Most professional trade shows aren't cheap (expect to pay 500-3000 dollars) but they are probably the most time efficent way to get to know a new industry.

This also works great as a creativity boost, learning about different problems and different solutions can generate a ton of new ideas for your domain problems.

Re: Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it?

#22

Post by radu_floricica » Sat, May 31, 2008, 7:22 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #5

A story to share: My wife worked for a local Land Rover dealership for a short time a couple years back. I visited one day and saw the computer system they used and was shocked at how ancient and horrible the interface and hardware were. For a dealership selling 80K Range Rovers I thought it was downright crazy that they were using software that looked like it was from the 80's. I realized however after talking to he…

I just submitted something related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=205295

That's basically what I'm doing right now: walking in and making my pitch, and it doesn't go well. What worked was we made a software app for a company in one industry and got a call from another company asking about it. So next month I'll probably just sell this one app and make free money of it. I wonder if that's why it's so rare to find a true custom software company...

Re: Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it?

#23

Post by Xlp-Thlplylp » Sat, May 31, 2008, 7:38 PM UTC

Can you learn an industry without working in it? My boy, that, or rather the converse: that you can work in and manage an industry without learning it, is the great promise that MBA programs make to their students. The idea that there are abstract principles of management, of dressing down subordinates, of bringing in new business and cutting costs (that's all that CEOs do, essentially) that free the MBA from ever having to dirty his or her hands with the business--their primary, all-consuming interest, they protest--is for them a feature, not a bug. It's business processes all the way down...