Remember "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Office Space"?

The last few weeks reminded me some scenes from The Hudsucker Proxy.
Two main associations were:

1. Stocks and Agendas


2. Viral Marketing and Pricing

Get your copy:

And in case you are working for a big enterprise, get this one as well...

E.T.

Getting Real (again...)

I guess 'getting real' is doing a comeback (...) as investors and companies are taking actions.
In a recent post of 37Signals, Jason pointed out some key concepts from the Getting Real eBook (read it free).

Some (relevant) topics from the book:

• Build Less
• Have an Enemy
• Less Mass
• What's the big idea?
• It's a Problem When It's a Problem
• Half, Not Half-Assed
• Hidden Costs
• Forget Feature Requests
• "Done!"
• Meetings Are Toxic
• Seek and Celebrate Small Victories
• Hire Less and Hire Later
• Interface First
• Three State Solution
• Get Defensive
• One Interface
• Less Software
• Don't Do Dead Documents
• Tell Me a Quick Story
• Free Samples
• Easy On, Easy Off
• Promote Through Education
• Track Your Logs
• Feel The Pain

You may like these ideas, or really hate them, but they do worth a thought.

E.T.

John Doerr's pragmatic action points

As a follow up to the previous post (would you stand by me) and thanks to alleyinsider and BoomTown, here are John Doerr's pragmatic action points:

1. Act now
2. Protect vital core of business (surgical cuts, not axe)
3. Get 18 months or more of cash
4. Defer unnecessary expenses (swanky new office, Microsoft Windows) and be tightwad on capex. Re-prioritize all R&D. You now can't afford to do it all.
5. Negotiate. In this climate, everything is negotiable. Including existing contracts, terms.
6. Everyone in company should be selling, even receptionist. (This is not just about expenses, need to grow revenue).
7. Swap cash bonuses and salaries for equity.
8. Pay attention to where your cash is. (Treasuries, not money markets).
9. Look 90 days ahead and assess revenue. If not there, reset plan.
10. Over-communicate: With employees, investors, key customers. Let them know your resolve. Don't sugarcoat the situation we're in.

E.T.

Would You Stand By Me?

The next few months are not going to be easy.
You can read about it everywhere (alleyinsider, gigaom, venturebeat, techcrunch and many more).

And then came the Sequoia slides:

Sequoia Capital on startups and the economic downturn

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: depression recession)

As I was reading all these "get-real" posts and looking into these slides I felt as something is missing.

Do you think/feel the same?

In general, as a startup, we can work harder, burn less money, re-prioritize development plans and do all the things you can see listed in the slides.
For example:

---

---

---

As my 4 years old son once told me:

"If you are sending me home, you need to come with me..."

We are all in this together.

---

As we can all agree, the recovery will be long

---

We need to keep working as a team.

As for the phrase I keep hearing "raising an internal round", reinvesting in portfolio companies is 'internal round' as well.

I know great investors and VCs who are looking beyond and investing in their portfolio companies with wisdom, connections and other non-funding ways, helping, as true partners, to overcome these hard days and to be ready for the future.

I only wish they would be more vocal about it and help/make the media balance the current state-of-mind.

So, as you 'get real', look at your investors and ask:

"Would you stand by me?"

E.T.

PS - please read the Blog disclaimer