startupi

When your car is running near empty, do you drive faster to get to the nearest gas (or ethanol) station as soon as possible, or do you go slowly to conserve gas and guarantee you’ll arrive?

And if you don’t know where the next gas station is? Does this change your strategy? If you have a strategy for this, leave a comment below.

One thing: when you are working in a startup you hear people say “we’re in a bubble, but it will come to an end.” When the VCs are still sending millions of dollars to keep things operating it’s easy to ignore. Another thing: you’re just getting your own startup going and this bubble - which was just an abstraction, like some data structure you know about - suddenly turns into the worst economic crisis in history. This transition occurred in the second half of 2008 here in the US. In the beginning quite slowly, but then Wall Street started to crumble. Read more…

When is the best time to launch a startup? Now! In truth there is never a perfect time, so the best time is always now. What I mean to say is that good ideas, well implemented, have a good chance of surviving even in rough economic times like we have today.

Ideas often have require a timing that if missed kills their value. Waiting for a crisis to pass and then bringing out your idea can be fatal for business. Putting it out there now is better. When the crisis has passed and you are still there, there will certainly be people interested in your business.

An article in the last edition of the magazine Exame had the title “The crisis returns to Silicon Valley,” predicting hard times for startups in general. It said venture capital is drying up and hard times have returned. It compared the scene to the first internet bubble bursting.

I don’t agree. I think today we don’t live in the same kind of euphoria that we had at the turn of the century. Business strategies are more realistic. Investors have been “innoculated.” Last time, any idea got tons of funding. Today it is the best ideas that are getting the attention. That is, it’s a different time that we saw a decade ago.

If the scenario is not so favorable to investment, it is certainly favorable to building an idea. If investors are more cautious because of the economic crisis, when it passes they will certainly want to grow their capital. Right now those who have the engine running are going to have a better chance than those who still need to pull their project together. Remember: now is the time!