Coronavirus Crisis: Resources and Guidance
We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With socio-political or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that. (Taleb, Black Swan)
CoViD-19 took our global system by surprise and brings turmoil and chaos to our economy. However, history has taught humanity that there are always ups and downs. We are convinced that smart founders with disruptive technologies are able to position themselves during times of change to become the category leaders of the future.
Back in 2007, capital300 partner Roman Scharf attended the infamous RIP Good Times presentation held by Sequoia as a founder himself and experienced startup crisis management first-hand. His learnings: “Analyse the situation, act fast, be pro-active and manage what you can control.”
Obviously the cause and effect of the financial crisis in 2007/08 differs from today’s situation. However, certain crisis management strategies are helpful right now: we recommend proactively thinking through and drawing up a “stress-test” analysis of various scenarios (in terms of revenues, cash burn, hiring plans).
While we are working closely with the founders in our portfolio and their teams on the best strategies for the upcoming weeks and months, here’s our smart reading list for now:
- https://sifted.eu/articles/startup-fundraising-coronavirus/
- https://hbr.org/2020/03/communicating-through-the-coronavirus-crisis
- https://medium.com/sequoia-capital/coronavirus-the-black-swan-of-2020-7c72bdeb9753
- https://a16z.com/2020/03/08/novel-coronavirus-and-covid-19-disease-resources-readings/
- https://www.bcg.com/featured-insights/coronavirus.aspx
- https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/covid-19-implications-for-business
- https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/10/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-will-stress-test-startups/
And please support all the positive forces and initiatives as we go through these challenging times. Don’t share pictures of empty supermarket shelves, don’t share doom day narratives. Do share constructive advice, smart reading and practical tips for people in lock-down. And most importantly: stay calm, stay home and stay healthy!
