Time to build

It's two weeks into the new year, and many are still refining (if not defining) their resolutions, regardless of what the gym ads say. Maybe it's because those resolutions made in the hopeful haze of the holidays don't hold up as January briskly marches on.

Well, this blog is about the startup ethos, and I don't do resolutions - but I do plan. And as the year ended, I, like many others, had to review the financials, the marketing and development plans, yada yada. Planning at year end is pretty much a given for any entrepreneur. But last year was not just any old year, and 2009 is starting from the ashes of what was simultaneously the bleakest year for the global economy but also the most hopeful year in American politics, and needless to say, the two are intertwined.

There have been many writings about how startups can survive the year ahead. There was the famous Sequoia presentation that started the belt-tightening in the VC and startup communities of Silicon Valley, and a flurry of how-to-survive posts from CEOs - you can read one here or here. All very useful, but also all oriented to those that have some level of funding or an established revenue stream. What about the entrepreneur who has just started out? How do you grow when everyone's pulling back?

I believe that now's the time to build. That doesn't mean that we sit back and wait for the government to infuse funds and start projects. We need that of course, but what we do at the personal level will have a ripple effect at the global level - if enough of us do it. And for an entrepreneur, in any area, just sitting around wringing hands and bemoaning fates/financiers/politicians is not an option. It's not in our DNA. We've got to be making something happen or we...er, move on.

So how do you build your business with little on no money? Very simply, you need to invest. You need to make an investment of time, energy and mind-share, if not money. Here are some ways you can build:

1. Invest in customers.

• Get to know your current and future customers/users. Build relationships that you can leverage when they have money to spend or you have the money to deliver. This works for every level, from large enterprises to individual consumers. Even when you're cutting back on spending, or specially then, the promise of new ideas and innovation on the horizon is always sexy.
• Do stuff for free for your users/customers. What you give away now will help you get revenue later.
  

2. Invest in domain expertise.

• Improve your expertise in your chosen area. Build skills and knowledge, do market research, do competitive analysis, talk to customers (see a pattern here?). Get better at what you do.
• Help your team members, if you have any, do the same.
  

3. Invest in your product/service and infrastructure.

• Build out your product or service. There are folks out there who're either stuck in paying, but boring, jobs or out looking for a job and willing to hone their skills 'donating' a few hours for you. If you're in the service business, take this opportunity to refine/streamline your offerings.
  
• Talk to customers/users (again!) to make sure you're positioning your product/service for the new environment we're facing.
• Improve your infrastructure and processes, stuff like file sharing, accounting or technical documentation.
  

4. Invest in connections.

• Meet people and establish genuine connections, not just the biz card swap. Customers and users (of course), advisors, tech and domain experts, and even funding sources. Even if they're not investing now, they could help later. Though personally I'm not a fan of doing the 'VC pitch' when there's no hope of funding, I think it helps just to get to know the people in the know.
  

5. Invest in marketing.

• No, this doesn't require much money, or even a marketing person on your team. You can spiff up your website (at least update the content), spiff up your presentations and fact sheets, set up blogs and user communities, and generally polish and spread the word.

Assuming you're already taking care of the 'making a living' part, there's still plenty you can do to build your business now so you're poised to take off when things improve, as they will. So build now and you can fly later.