When a founder is raising capital or applying for an accelerator program, one of the first questions they face is whether they're the right person for the job. What makes someone "right" is typically a mix of experience, skills, and genuine interest in the problem.
I understand this mentality. When someone else's time and money is at stake, due diligence matters. But consider the counterfactual: What if Brian Chesky never founded Airbnb because he lacked experience in hospitality? What if the Collison brothers never founded Stripe because they'd never worked in finance?
Airbnb and Stripe are just the tip of the iceberg. Most founders, especially young ones, have little to no direct experience or skills related to the problem they're solving. Yet they succeed anyway.
I believe the only thing that truly matters is finding a problem worth solving and then solving it. You don't need permission or a perfect pedigree. You just need to do the work.
The obsession with founder-market fit can actually be counterproductive. It creates unnecessary barriers to entry and discourages talented people from pursuing ideas they're passionate about simply because they don't check arbitrary boxes on someone's evaluation rubric.
The best founders aren't always the ones with the most relevant background, they're the ones who are relentlessly committed to solving a problem, learning whatever they need to learn, and building whatever needs to be built.