Some Things We Are Doing About Coronavirus
With everything going on related to coronavirus, we’re doing a few things that we wanted to share with our community.
If you have suggestions for ways we can be of service, we’d love to hear from you.
1. We’re open for business: We are continuing to invest at our normal pace — roughly one new investment every 6-8 weeks.
Despite a volatile market and the potential of a recession, we are not “market timers.” Part of our funds’ strategy is to dollar-cost-average into the market over our investment period.
We plan for the market to fluctuate over time, and as we’ve seen from market contractions in 2001 and 2008, great businesses are formed regardless of what’s going on in the economy.
As an entrepreneur running a startup that needs more capital to stay alive, this might feel like a daunting time. While businesses need prudent decision-making on burn rate and budgeting, we will continue to invest in great businesses and would love to hear from you over the coming weeks and months if you are raising money.
2. Better data = better decisions: Access to reliable data is a current challenge. There are so many different stories and sources, it’s hard to track and know what’s reliable. Worse, it is hard to trust the leadership and government due to the dearth of vital public information being made available.
One resource we’ve found helpful is this live worldwide tracking dashboard. We also have been checking the World Health Organization’s guidance here. If there are additional sources of information that you think are useful, let us know.
3. Work from home: It’s our responsibility as citizens to do our best to slow the spreading of the virus to prevent overwhelming our healthcare systems. So we’ve opted to all work from home for the foreseeable future. A week ago this may have seemed like a drastic step, but now it feels prudent. We’d encourage each of you to consider doing the same, if possible.
4. Support local businesses: Taking the precautions that are recommended by local, state, and federal institutions will likely have a dramatic impact on small businesses. Coffee shops, local grocery stores, restaurants, among others. We are intentionally going to direct our purchases to local businesses. We don’t know how long the economy will be compromised, and want to do our part to try and lift up the most vulnerable businesses and their employees.
This is a scary time. Years from now we’ll all look back and remember this moment. There is a lot of uncertainty, and fear is a natural reaction and feeling.
But we are optimistic. That hasn’t changed.
There are lots of people focused on solutions and now is the time for everyone to play their part.
Small positive steps add up.