- Short Description
- By becoming a true expert you will have other experts refer deals to you. And people who are not experts will also send deals in that field to you. The trick is to pick a field that will be relevant to investing and where you can develop true expertise. You may already have some of that expertise from prior learning or work. You can continue to invest in that and go deep. (Compare to Focus First then Generalize strategy for winning.)
- Benefits
- Clear Brand: People in the ecosystem know what kinds of companies you want to meet.
- Winning: You have a compelling reason a founder should want you invested in a company. You should have a higher win rate.
- Pulled In. Other investors will want you involved in companies to increase the chance of success.
- Trade-offs
- Takes Time & Passion: Building and maintaining true expertise takes time and passion. Best to pursue this strategy if you already have the expertise in place before coming into venture.
- Risk of Going to Narrow: If your expertise is too narrow there may not be enough companies to make the expertise valuable.
- Risk of Obsolescence: There is some risk of your expertise becoming outdated. Yes, there is risk that you knowledge in that field becomes out-of-date. There is a larger risk that the sub-field itself becomes less relevant to venture. To mitigate this risk, act quickly, build your reputation and then broaden to other strategies.
