The current status is very challenging for every founder out there.

All of us are looking for advice on how to sail through the current situation. It’s the first time for most of us to face such a critical state.

I’ve tried to look around all online materials to help me how to navigate the current situation. I attended some of the many online webinars trying to find some solid tips about how to navigate during this.

Then I landed on these great tips by The Lean Startup’s Eric Ries while on a podcast with the Great Jason Calacanis.

If you are not a fan of podcasts, You should be starting now. And if you are not following J-Cal’s “This Week in Startups”, you are missing a lot of knowledge that is easily digested.

I’ll give you a summary about what Eric said that startups should do.

“What a Founder should do tactically right now?” -Jason

• “Human beings are our priority” – add this to your corporate values
• Extend your empathy to your employees and suppliers
• “It’s not doing anyone a service to run your unsustainable company to the ground because you are afraid to make the hard choices”
• If you have the opportunity to raise even with less valuation just do it
• Don’t rush in laying off employees
• “First thing you got to do it figuring out new revenue opportunities”
• “Don’t hide the bad news”
• “Give yourself some time to find something new”
• “Give yourself 18 months of runway” and try to figure out new pivots that will keep your employees, and bring you money
• If you are letting your employees off do it with a compassion
• Take  the lean startup methodology seriously
• “Now is the time to build your reputation for the long term”
• Cutting salaries should be higher the higher your rank is in the startup. The VPs should get higher cuts than the staff
• This is the time to trade cash for equity (Less salary = more equity)
• Make sure that everyone has a pandemic specific job

 

Podcast Episode

Here’s a video and audio file for the podcast if you’d like to listen to the full episode.

On YouTube:

 

On Soundcloud:

 

Finally,

If you want to listen to the full episode be my guest, It’s a discussion between The Lean Startup’s Eris and Jason about how to be a human before being a Founder/CEO “Putting people first should be our main focus”. If you want to listen directly to the Actionable tips skip to 30:38 in the podcast!