Advice from legendary investor Ron Conway about being a little boat in a big downturn:
“Raising capital will be much more difficult now.
You should lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to “raising an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible. Letting go of staff is hard and often gut wrenching. A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with the eye of doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some respects is survival–survival until conditions change.”
Susan sez: Since we haven’t gone after funding yet, this is great advice. And if we were newly funded, it would be even better.
1 response so far ↓
1 moto // Oct 9, 2008 at 2:50 am
I know of non-dilutive grants from the government supporting engineering headcount to encourage startups to establish engineering centers in Singapore. Does this sound interesting in such times?
You basically plonk a team in Singapore, pay their payroll out of Singapore, and every 3 or 6 months, get reimbursed up to 50% of their base salary. This might be a good way to stretch startups’ existing venture-backed dollars in such tough times.
Does it makes sense? Thoughts guys?
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