What turbulent times suggest for young ventures

I have been asking several expert mentors what advice they would give to early stage ventures in to-day’s turbulent times. Here is what they said:

1. Expect customers and investors to delay decisions in the short term; but these things will take at least two years to sort out, so some kind of new norm will return to fill this gap.
2. Cut development work that does not support the core competency of your business model.
3. Get more from customers (and less from funders): don’t refrain from recruiting.
4. Understand your revenue and expense streams and tailor the size of your organisation to a [cautious] estimate of future funds.
5. Funding rounds are getting tighter and squeezing founders; and funders are requiring a good business case that includes ‘deeptech’ (IP), and not just break-even but also a handsome regular income from trading.
6. You are entrepreneurs: look for new opportunities – in a slightly more conservative world.

John Whatmore, June 2016