Comments on: In Praise of Bad Times: What we can learn from the last downturn

By: Julian Hucker

Julian Hucker — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:14:30 +0000

I agree with the arguments. I also think that there is a fundamental difference between Entrepreneurs and Corporate Warriors.

Corporations make decisions to minimise the risk of failure. It’s the right thing to do when you’re running an airline or building a bridge, but it stifles innovation.

Entrepreneurs look to maximise the chance of success. So whilst we may not have the resources of a corporation we are always looking to do new things that we think will increase our chance of success.

In a downturn this becomes even more obvious as large companies focus even more on the few things that are working for them

By: Ashley Norris

Ashley Norris — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:27:01 +0000

I have met Nigel a few times and absolutely love his Hubdub site – a work of web genius. I would like to think he is spot on with his assessment of where web 2.0 companies will end up. The only thing that I disagree with him on is whether larger companies will continue to innovate. The cost of development has come down so far that I suspect many will keep doing interesting things because it isn’t going to cost them too much and might just deliver fantastic rewards one day.

Another interesting effect of the downturn, though I suspect it is a process that has been happening for a while, is a shrinkage in the number of blog posts. Several companies have reported this recently http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/state_of_the_blogosphere_2008.phpand anecdotally I am noticing that it is easier to get traffic from search engines to my content sites popjunkietv.com and anorak.co.uk that it has been for a good three years.

I think this does deliver an opportunity to bloggers who want to monetise their sites, in that while CPMs may be down their traffic may start to rise again.

By: Sam Collins

Sam Collins — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:26:42 +0000

Yeah I agree with keld, it pained me when I first saw an article about how we can survive the downturn over the big corps, but good insight Nigel and well written. I take these times, layoffs and badness aside, as a positive catalyst to just challenge everyone to think.

By: keld

keld — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:16:05 +0000

Refreshingly free of cliche, and anectodal evidence from the last nuclear winter puts it in perspective. good post nigel.

By: Manoj Ranaweera

Manoj Ranaweera — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:03:50 +0000

Breath of fresh air to read a well articulated post from Nigel. I agree with the argument, but finding revenue streams other than advertising continue to be the challenge for many startups – for us, it’s the enterprise and the challenge remains on finding early adopters of the technology curve.

By: Kevin Dorren

Kevin Dorren — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:35:06 +0000

I agree, I have to say that the team also define the opportunity – the whole team at Hubdub understand how to invest to get the maximum return from their (and our angels) investment.

Well done Nigel and your team

By: Ben Colclough

Ben Colclough — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:24:09 +0000

great post. having just left a corporate for to start-up I totally concur that big companies don’t do risky new stuff in the bad times (well they’re not particularly great at it in the good times either, but that is another story). All in though, times like these really focus your mind on cash-flow, prioritising what is important

By: fred wilson

fred wilson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:23:37 +0000

i agree with all of this. it’s a great summary of where we are and why we should keep going

By: Kristoffer Lawson

Kristoffer Lawson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:45:35 +0000

Excellent point made about how innovation will be happening in startups right now (as it has done during previous downturns). The challenge is thus for us startups to be able to continue that innovation: to live tight and/or create that revenue to survive until the big companies are ready for those acquisitions again (or the startup grows big enough itself).

By: Elliott Ng

Elliott Ng — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:53:04 +0000

This is a common sentiment. Bad times are good for startups, if they have the cash. I think this has been true but this next downturn is unlike any we have ever seen in most of our lives. So I think a bigger rethink is needed about specifically *which* startups are ripe for launching at this moment, and which are not.

By: David Petherick

David Petherick — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:26:36 +0000

I agree with this assessment – it’s a time for bootstrapping entrepreneurs.