Venturebeat hosted a short conference today about how to survive in a down market. There is a lot of doom and gloom out there. As CEO, I’m always aware of costs and runway. And. I know it’s easier to save money than to make it. However, there is a lot of missed opportunity happening right now. Lot’s of smart people are getting together to talk about cutting costs. However, for most of the folks that are talking about cutting costs is because they let their expenses get too far ahead of revenue. They hired too many sales folks before they proved there was a market, or hired too many engineers and other people to find that they had too small a runway for the current environment for raising money. These people need to change plans quickly.
But. There are a lot of startups out there that are frugal. And. Very lean. There are also many that remember what it was like in 2000 when the money stopped flowing and had to get profitable. The discussion I want to hear, which nobody seems interested in talking about is how to make money. I’m specifically interested in how in this environment can development cycles be shortened to get to revenue quicker. How to switch from growth without revenues, to growth with revenues. How can companies work together to get ad dollars online. How can we share meetings with ad agencies? What are the best tactics to getting revenue coming in the doors now?
We have a marvelous set of really smart hardworking people hear in the Bay Area. I certainly think we can do better for our employees, customers, and companies by moving beyond cutting cost and figuring out how we can make more money.
I agree.
When the mass tends to move in one direction, it’s a good idea to think carefully and consider the other direction.
A few years ago, people were investing heavily in real estate, flipping houses. People buying in 2006 and 2007 were doing themselves a disservice.
Now, you’re exactly right. People are focused too much on belt-tightening, and not enough on seizing opportunities. Development will not stop. Innovation won’t stop. And people will not stop moving more and more time online. The only thing that has changed is the nature of funding, for the next year or so.