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Is Lack of Experience Ever an Asset?

I came across an article from the WSJ on Hoopshype.com, one of the more popular NBA news sites.  I’d never heard about it, but apparently, it is a very influential site that fans, agents, coaches and management turn to religiously.

Interestingly, the site was started by three Spaniards who have been to less than 3 NBA games in their lives.  What’s more shocking isn’t that, it’s that they had little if any experience with the NBA itself. 

You’d think that an NBA news / gossip site would have to be run by insiders, beat reporters or even, former athletes, right?

Wrong. 

It proves something: When in doubt, put your money on outsiders, they carry less baggage and don’t start a company with too many presumptions or biases about a given industry.  Less baggage, less bad habits, I would say. 

Sometimes people with too much experience think they have a sense of entitlement to succeed; the world doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. 

Other times, insiders are too lazy to hustle for the loose ball.  Outsiders know they have to work twice as hard and those who win tend to give their 200%.

When I joined my old company - an online magazine - I recall asking the President who amongst the three founders had the publishing experience.  He said no one.  Initially I thought that was weird.

Over time, I realized why: we did not run our business with the bad habits of offline publishing.  We took on the websites of magazine companies and succeeded by becoming the market share leader (over 35%) because we had never worked in publishing or the magazine world.

The same applies to video projects, too: think Pop.com.  What happened to that?  Pop.com was Steven Spielberg’s ill-fated video project.  While many people blame lack of broadband users and high bandwidth costs, I think that was probably half of the problem.  I am sure Pop.com was probably aimed at mimicking the TV experience and that is not how the Web works.

When I started WatchMojo.com, I did not even know about Pop.com’s misadventures, but I never once cared that I lacked TV experience.  It was clear that it would be an advantage.

After my old experience beating Maxim, Esquire, GQ, Men’s Health and Playboy, I was confident that my new company could win in online video even if I’d never edited or shot a frame of video in my life.

Two years into it, those lack of bad habits from TV anf film have proven to become a priceless asset. 

The lesson: the truth is that a lack of experience in something isn’t always a weakness, sometimes, it’s an asset… especially on the Web when rarely you can enter a game with a playbook or rules.

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Posted By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | Mar 23rd

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