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After stocking up on food… (tips to build a business during a down economy)

By Guest contributors for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:February 24, 2009

What started off as a series of Tweets, has morphed into an actual blog post. It is also a sorta response to the gloom and doom posts around building a small, growing company in a down economy. Having founded and helped build one through a couple of down years (aka IT nuclear winter), survived and learned a lot from it, here’s a list of things from that experience to consider:

#10. Look out for new competitors who are smarter and nimbler, because cost of building a business is lower in these times. Read Tip #9.

#9. Spend on customer support. good service during a down economy is always rewarded with customer loyalty and repeat purchases when things come around.

#8. Keep revenue focused ppl. focused on revenue. They do not need to hear the gloom and doom. If possible, keep their salary the same to keep their morale from sagging.

#7. Question the revenue model. down economy closes some budgets, opens others. think like your customer would. better yet, ask them.

#6. Unless you have an update for customers/partners, press/PR is a low priority. watch out for ceos wasting time with press in this time.

#5. Try not to listen to every macro trend (esp. the negative ones). as long as internal operations are going acc to plan, it matters very little.

#4. Let go of employees who are taking from the company’s energy instead of giving to it. Promote key people during bad periods.

#3. Go out of your way to overcommunicate to current and potential customers. You WILL survive, if you make them miss you.

#2. Put a brake on status quo, and figure out a meaningful path / timeline to revenue (unless financed for 2+ years in which case re-validate the company’s timeline and value prop a la the Hedgehog Principle).

#1. Founders take a meaningful salary cut, ask others to do the same. Compensate with stock that vests in a shorter period than 4 yrs.

Are these useful? Do you agree with them? Let me know!

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Anand Chandrasekaran is a successful technology entrepreneur and Market Development / Products executive with a track record of starting and building enterprise and consumer-focused businesses that solve significant industry problems through innovation. He is a graduate from Stanford University and was recognized as an innovator by the MIT Technovator Awards in 2004. Follow him on twitter.com/anandc.

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