Visionaries and Subject Matter Expert Founders

Believe me, if you look at enough Startup concepts, then the mystery recedes a little, and patterns begin to emerge. It helps that I’ve had plenty of ideas of my own, and turned more than a dozen of them into successful exits. It also helps that since moving into investing, I’ve been pitched by founders literally thousands of times. As a result, I’ve noticed that successful Founders typically fall into one of two categories: they’re either visionaries, or subject-matter experts,?

A visionary is someone who generates ideas by approaching problems from the outside in. They start out with a new way of thinking, or a new way of doing something, and they apply it to an existing problem to generate value. In other words, they start with a hammer, and go looking for nails to whack. Someone like the legendary Steve Jobs is the archetypal Startup visionary. He transformed established industries by bringing his own unique blend of tech prowess and marketing genius.?

A subject-matter expert (SME), on the other hand, approaches problems from the inside out. They’re already immersed in their field, and leverage that expertise to identify and solve unaddressed challenges. There are two types of SMEs: vertical and functional. I have an investment in a SME success-story: a veteran in the government space who created a platform for government legislative drafting. Another example I sold a real estate marketing platform developed from a founder who had expertise in the marketing sector (function), think of functional like functional are leaders in your business, in this case of marketing.???

I’ve tried both approaches when starting Startups over the years. My biggest successes came as a subject-matter expert in the digital marketing space — a sector I helped to define. After starting a website development Startup during the internet gold rush, I noticed customers asking “ok, now how do I get people to my website?” BOOM -- an idea. Over the course of 17 years, I became a true vertical SME and thought leader in that industry solidified through keynotes, panales, published articles and ending in a clean all cash exit.

I’ve also taken the plunge into industries I wasn’t familiar with. In the applied environmental technology space, I researched and engaged with (and hassled) a mentor, Dr Howard Warren. Dr. Warren had created a truly revolutionary Bio rememedation technology that addressed the root cause of clogged filters and pipes in public wastewater. Does not sound sexy right, but this is a substantial problem, another word for opportunity. Dr. Warren lacked the vision of how to create a Startup around his invention. Armed with Dr. Warren’s guidance and blessing, I leveraged his invention to build an environmental biotech Startup that was eventually acquired by a publicly traded Canadian company. In this example, I was the visionary.