Archives / March, 2020

With so many jobs being lost to the COVID-19 crisis a group of us thought it would be helpful to put together a talent network to help support those looking for work during this challenging time. We know there are companies out there hiring, and that includes tech companies. The Colorado #Covid19 Startup Talent Network provides job seekers access to upload their profile information and job skills. It also allows companies to search for talent and sort on various job criteria. Please share this network so we can get the word out. You can use this bitl.ly shortlink for ease: bit.ly/COCovid19StartupTalent. You can also quickly share through social media with this ClickToTweet link: https://ctt.ac/fbncf A few thoughts as we launch…

My posts last week (which included predictions of pending lay-offs at technology businesses) prompted a number of people to reach out and ask a variant of the question: “How can I find a job in the middle of a shutdown/meltdown?”. I don’t know that I have a great answer to that but I thought I’d take a stab at it with the hope that some of these ideas will be at least somewhat helpful to those that find themselves in the position of being out of work during this crisis. TBC, while we’ve already seen a number of layoffs, I think there unfortunately are many more coming. Early lay-offs were widespread in the hospitality, travel and related industries. We’re just…

I had a few things on my mind related to the startup environment right now as it relates to Covid-19 and the massive market disruption that we’re in the middle of. It’s a struggle to get them all sorted out in my mind so apologies in advance if these are a little disjointed. As you can imagine we’ve been having conversations all week across the Foundry portfolio (which includes not just companies but also our ~ 35 fund investments; between those we have look-through into a few thousand companies). With that, here are some general observations on the market as well as a few things specific to startup companies (relevant across stages). We’re still in the quiet before the storm…

Making decisions for your business can be hard even in normal circumstances. Right now, in this time of great uncertainty and high emotional stress it’s even harder. I’m on countless calls a day now where I’m trying to talk through with people in our universe (CEOs, GPs of other funds, fellow board members, etc.) critical decisions that in many cases will define the future for the businesses involved. How to react in a time like this is complicated and in most cases is not obvious. Just how bad things may get is unknown, as is how long this will last and what effect that will have on various business sectors and on specifics businesses is unclear. Below are a few…

Humans are, as a general rule, poor at changing their minds once they’ve developed a view about something. This can be the cause of plenty of arguments and I suspect is a significant reason we’ve become so much more polarized as a country in recent decades (that, and it’s ancillary effect of causing us to seek out only information and data that  support our unbending view). But in the case of dealing with a pandemic like Covid-19 it can be downright dangerous. I thought it would be helpful – perhaps even important – to talk about why being open to new and evolving information is so critically important in a time when what we know about Covid-19 is changing so rapidly….