I think you are asking a very important question for any entrepreneur which is "how do I go about finding a substantial business opportunity upon which I could build a viable enterprise?"
Recently I wrote about "entre-sumer" which I believe is an important cornerstone for bootstrapping startups. Basically I am arguing that we need to refine the "Build Something People Want" concept further by narrowing it to "Build Something I want".
That is, to maximize our chance for success, we need to be the "entre"preneur who creates the solution and at the same time, be the con"sumer" who has a burning need for such solution.
So in that sense, the Founders of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, etc., were doing just that. They were the representatives of their generation and they were the "alpha" dogs. By eating their own dog food, their success is assured since by definition there are plenty of "beta" dogs who would follow.
But rather than saying that these are "software-related" opportunities, I would say that these are E2C opportunities, building an "E"nterprise to sell to "C"onsumers.
My own opinion is that while these are interesting and highly visible opportunities, they have the fundamental problem that more often than not, you will be competing with "free". It is difficult if not impossible to get consumers to pay, however much they might live to depend on your products and services. So typically the viable business model is advertising, i.e., monetizing eyeballs.
The other side of the coin, and I believe this is the gut of your question, is E2E, building an "E"nterprise to sell to other "E"nterprises.
Then the answer to your question is YES. Someone in your team would need to come from that industry who can be the "surrogate" customer.
My experience with selling to enterprises is that customers are actually not the place you start when you build a company from scratch. They know how to criticize an imperfect product but they have no idea what to do with a perfect PowerPoint. You need to have someone inside your team who has the insights to guide your vision. If that person is you, it is the best.
Recently I wrote about "entre-sumer" which I believe is an important cornerstone for bootstrapping startups. Basically I am arguing that we need to refine the "Build Something People Want" concept further by narrowing it to "Build Something I want".
That is, to maximize our chance for success, we need to be the "entre"preneur who creates the solution and at the same time, be the con"sumer" who has a burning need for such solution.
So in that sense, the Founders of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, etc., were doing just that. They were the representatives of their generation and they were the "alpha" dogs. By eating their own dog food, their success is assured since by definition there are plenty of "beta" dogs who would follow.
But rather than saying that these are "software-related" opportunities, I would say that these are E2C opportunities, building an "E"nterprise to sell to "C"onsumers.
My own opinion is that while these are interesting and highly visible opportunities, they have the fundamental problem that more often than not, you will be competing with "free". It is difficult if not impossible to get consumers to pay, however much they might live to depend on your products and services. So typically the viable business model is advertising, i.e., monetizing eyeballs.
The other side of the coin, and I believe this is the gut of your question, is E2E, building an "E"nterprise to sell to other "E"nterprises.
Then the answer to your question is YES. Someone in your team would need to come from that industry who can be the "surrogate" customer.
My experience with selling to enterprises is that customers are actually not the place you start when you build a company from scratch. They know how to criticize an imperfect product but they have no idea what to do with a perfect PowerPoint. You need to have someone inside your team who has the insights to guide your vision. If that person is you, it is the best.
Hope this helps.