Chapter 1 not main character's viewpoint?

taeray said:

Totally fine in my opinion. I've read plenty of books that have pulled that off. I think as long as people understand why they were introduced to that character that it will work.

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Exactly.

The first chapter of my WIP is from the perspective of a character other than the MC because it was important to see the event in the introduction through that character's eyes and know how she felt about it. The MC is then introduced in the next chapter. IMHO, it's working fine and I've read similar things with no confusion on my part, so it's not something I've ever worried about.

Like everyone else has stated above: no problem here. You can certainly do it and feel comfortable doing it. I be doin the same thing for one of my book's (technically in the prologue, but...ehhh––tomato, tomato. You get it).

There is an element of genre at play here too. Epic Fantasy readers tend to expect a large cast of characters and are less surprised by an 'intro' chapter. In other genres it doesn't work as well if the readers are expecting a single POV throughout.

I'm in a similar situation. My whole novel is third person but the first chapter is a flashback/scene from the distant past, then the second chapter is a brief something else (too difficult to explain!) and it's only at the third chapter that my MC comes in.
I might get negative comments from beta readers and reconsider but for my story and what I'm trying to do, I think it should work. Go with your gut and like a few others have said, I don't think in writing there are absolute rules.
If you've read the uber-successful "Wool" then you'll know that you really don't get to focus on the MC until about a third of the way in! Same with Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy - Lisbeth isn't fully explored until WAY into the first novel.