Emerald Marmot asked
answered 4h ago
Hey Philip - would love your thoughts on attempting entrepreneurship and creation for someone that has an analytics background.
I resonate with a lot of other posts here on attempting to create something myself, but face a bit of imposter syndrome as I come from an analytics (data science, data engineering) background. Most folks I see today come from engineering, design, or product management backgrounds and have really deep skillsets in these areas. Is this a reasonable concern / have you seen any of your analytics peers be successful in this? Thank you!
Philip's answer
I have indeed seen a few analytics coworkers be successful with their startups. But you're also right that it's less frequent. It's unclear to me whether there's causality, though, in that there are far less analytics folks than PMs, engineers, and designers, so it could also be just a numbers thing.
Writers often advise each other to "write what you know." If you launch your own company, it may be smart to choose domains where your analytics background is an advantage instead of a setback. You don't want to compete head-on in games where you're disadvantaged.
And remember: tons of entrepreneurs are successful as 24-year-olds. Assuming you have more experience than that, I've got to believe you know a lot more things about building successful businesses even if any particular 24-year-old might be a software engineer or PM. Your past doesn't need to dictate your future.