Uncertainty
I’ve been reading a lot recently about the relationship between uncertainty and mental health. Specifically, it’s well-documented that uncertainty drives significant anxiety. This is logical on many levels but what I didn’t realize is just how deep-seated it is. In a time when there’s an incredible amount of uncertainty, I think this is something that everyone needs to take a step back and understand. Even people who haven’t lost jobs, don’t have loved ones impacted by COVID, and whose kids are doing well in online school are affected. …
May 27, 2020· 3 min read
Working Remotely – Extending WFH
A few weeks ago, I posted that Foundry had made the decision to remain out of the office until at least June 1st. We’re fortunate that we’re in the position to work effectively this way – because of the kind of work we do and the way our company is set up (not to mention that we’re a team of 14). While we miss seeing each other, we felt it was safer to keep everyone at home. …
May 20, 2020· 4 min read
Join Me Thursday for a Business Town Hall with Rep Joe Neguse
Sorry for the short notice but I’ve been working with Rep Joe Neguse (CO 2) to put together a Business Town Hall this Thursday, May 21st at 11:00MT. Joe’s been a real champion of small business (in particular minority and women-owned businesses) and I’m really glad that he’s agreed to do this. Joe has been one of the most available Congressmen during his time in office holding over 24 town hall events in his first year in Congress alone. …
May 19, 2020· 1 min read
An Update on The Colorado Talent Network
We launched the Colorado Talent Network on March 26 in direct response to Coloradans losing their jobs due to COVID-19 layoffs. To date, over 650 people have signed up and created a profile to gain more visibility with companies hiring. Since the launch, we’ve added the ability for employers to add open positions and job seekers to browse the 35+ companies actively hiring. We also decided to open this up beyond just the startup community adding professional backgrounds such as: Banking, CleanTech/Energy, Credit Unions, Education, Entertainment, Hospitality, Restaurant, Retail, and Other for those not captured. …
May 18, 2020· 2 min read
Social Distancing or Social Distrust
I was at the grocery store the other day and thankfully most people were wearing masks (a big change from a few months ago when I was literally laughed at when I wore a mask to that same story, early on in the crisis). However, walking around, people’s body language really struck me. In our efforts to socially distance, we are going out of our way to stay away from each other. That’s exactly what we should be doing, but I felt like there was almost a veneer of distrust and mistrust between people. What people are thinking is made harder to understand because everyone’s facial expressions are hidden behind their masks. Is that person smiling at me or growling as I gave them space coming off the end of an isle? Did they hear my muffled voice say something kind as we passed or did I come off as mad? …
May 15, 2020· 2 min read
Circular Advice from the SBA
Quick preface to this note. I’m not your lawyer and I’m not giving legal advice. As I wrote about at the beginning of the week, the SBA has made a mess of the Payroll Protection Program. Yes, there are some challenges to parts of the structure of the program, but I was referring in that post to the SBAs implementation of the program and the varied guidance they’ve given since the program’s launch. They have been inconsistent, unclear and sometimes contradictory to statements made by Treasury and administration officials. It’s led to confusion on the part of companies who applied (or were thinking of applying) and ultimately to greater loss of jobs as companies struggled to understand whether they qualified or not. I can tell you from the board rooms that I’ve been in (virtually, of course) that people are genuinely trying to understand the intent and do the right thing, even if turning down the money meant that they needed to lay off or furlough some workers to keep costs in check. …
May 14, 2020· 7 min read
The SBA Needs To Get It’s Act Together On The PPP
The SBA’s implementation of the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) has been a mess. The intention was to provide needed relief to businesses that were impacted economically by the COVID-19 crisis. But, while very well-intentioned, it’s implementation has been flawed. In particular, the SBA has given inconsistent guidance that continues to change and evolve, leaving companies left to wonder if they qualify or not. The result has been not just confusion but also job losses that were likely not what Congress intended the program to result in. …
May 10, 2020· 8 min read
The Changing Nature of Entrepreneurship | EforAll
Entrepreneurship in the United States is changing pretty dramatically – in ways that many of us have failed to notice or understand. Specifically today’s American entrepreneurs are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). Meanwhile, the fastest-growing group female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of the new women-owned businesses being created. There’s a lot more to dig into here, which I’ll do in future posts. But it’s urgent that we begin to understand this because we’re failing to build systems to support these new entrepreneurs. This has become especially clear in the current economic crisis, as I pointed out in this piece I wrote with Elizabeth Macbride a few weeks ago for CNBC as well as this post from last week. Relief money authorized by congress under various programs of the CARES Act and other initiatives is failing to reach many women and minority owned businesses and is highlighting structural issues with the way we support entrepreneurs in the United States. For example, it has been widely documented that women and minority owned businesses are not accessing aid through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) – see for example, here, here, here, here, [here](http://Small-business loan program discriminates against women …www.marketwatch.com › story › small-business-loan-pro…). This program requires businesses to have relationships with certain approved SBA lenders, which women and minority owned businesses are less likely to have. Its initial roll-out excluded certain types of financial institutions (most notably CDFIs) which disproportionately bank these businesses. It also left much of the underwriting criteria up to the banks themselves, who favored other customers. And the program itself – based on W2 payroll and primarily benefiting businesses that were in a position to open up quickly – failed to address the kinds of businesses most likely to be started by this new generation of entrepreneurs. …
May 6, 2020· 5 min read
Colorado is Opening Up. Foundry is not. Here’s our Thinking.
In mid-March, I wrote a post about how Foundry Group had joined a number of other businesses in the early adoption of work from home and other practices to stem the spread of COVID-19. We recognized that this would be an essential part of helping create social distance and by doing so, flattening the curve. As Colorado and many other states are moving to a more relaxed set of policies (although Denver and Boulder are waiting a few more weeks until they follow the rest of the state), we’ve decided that for Foundry we’ll continue our work from home policy until at least the end of May (Brad’s post on that here). We’re doing this because we’re in the fortunate position where we can and we’re being public about it because we’re hoping other businesses that are in a position to do so will do the same. We’re fortunate at Foundry to operate the kind of business that works well remotely and although we miss seeing each other in the office and the natural collaboration that happens when we’re all there, our business functions pretty much normally even when we’re all remote. And, like other businesses, we’ve been very deliberate about trying to replicate our in-office dynamic online (for us that includes several weekly stand-ups, extended time together on Mondays as well as ad hoc “cocktail/mocktail hours”. We also recognize that there are many businesses that need to open up sooner and we feel that they should take priority over companies like Foundry that can continue working from home without big disruptions to our operations. …
May 4, 2020· 2 min read
We’ve helped over 150 small businesses navigate the crisis | Here’s what we’ve learned
I wrote recently about the The Finance Assistance Network (FAN), that I helped set up (along with Lew Visscher and Phil Votteiro) three weeks ago to offer pro bono financial advice to small businesses affected by COVID-19. So far the network has helped almost 200 companies navigate questions around surviving in the post-Covid work and to access PPP and other federal assistance. Tomorrow (Friday, May 1) at 9:00MT the FAN is hosting a webinar – Extending Your Runway: Small Business Tools to Survive a Cash Flow Crisis. The webinar is hosted by Good Business Colorado and is sponsored by a number of organizations advocating for small businesses including MAPR Agency, The Bell Policy Center, Small Business Majority, and others. The webinar is free and you can register here. I’m encouraging everyone to share the information about the webinar and the FAN on their social media channels and especially with small business owners in their networks. Supporting small businesses during this crisis is crucial to the overall health of our economy so please spread the word about these free resources. …
April 30, 2020· 5 min read