You need a Local to tackle boring.
This first appeared on my newsletter Boring Problems, where I write about how fundamental progress is made by tackling unsexy problems that matter. See more and subscribe here.
Some startup teams are Locals, some are Tourists, and some have both. Those that have both are the most powerful, but boring problems need local bias to work.
AngelList
Let’s take one beautiful example of having both — AngelList. I joined as Employee 2, the first day we had an office, and managed the dealflow through most of the first 10,000 pitches.
Naval is the perfect Local/Tourist combo to tackle venture. That’s why he teamed up with Nivi to start the Venture Hacks blog, and then AngelList.
Around the time I was at AngelList, there were dozens of similar attempts. None of them worked. Why?
Many were all started by outsiders, who thought you could put a button on the internet to connect founders and investors and disrupt venture capital! They didn’t, because they didn’t understand the underlying dynamics in the industry. You needed someone who did understand that — a Local — but who also saw one version of what it could be — a Tourist. Naval was that. So much so that he and Nivi wrote the canonical blog on fundraising before using that knowledge to start AngelList. We knew how important social capital was in our industry, and so obsessed over email subject lines and pitch quality. And we had a waiting list of thousands of investors who wanted to get in. Our competition was mostly Tourists who oversimplified the problem.
Now, when I say Naval was part Tourist, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t know his shit. He just had an outsider mentality combined with an insider/local understanding. But the combo was powerful.
Local Knowledge Matters
Boring problems need local knowledge. It’s very hard to understand the layers of history, incentives, stakeholders, and dynamics if you’re a pure Tourist to a boring problem. You’ll think it’s way simpler a problem to solve than it is. You’ll make all kids of assumptions that will put you on wrong paths and consume cycles to correct.
Or put another way, if your team has a lack of local knowledge, it had better be exceptional at something else to compensate — ridiculous speed of learning and execution, extreme customer bias, curiosity and ability to listen with humility or something like that. Because in these areas, even an outsized ability to raise capital doesn’t help as much as you would think.
The good news is that Tourists don’t tend to find boring problems as often as Locals, and when they do, they’re more committed than your average passport-wielding Tourist. So those teams that are left tend to be high signal and committed.
If you’re a prospective team member, check if the founders have local knowledge with some Tourist energy. If you’re an investor who cares about boring problems, make sure you’re attracting Locals. And if you’re a founder, check that your team has enough local knowledge, and fill gaps you have.
The combination is powerful, but Locals have a head start.
This first appeared on my newsletter Boring Problems, where I write about how fundamental progress is made by tackling unsexy problems that matter. See more and subscribe here.
