A follow-up of Ridzuan’s email – “Keep it going. Don’t lose heart!” It is pretty clear that the market is filled with pessimism especially of the poor performance in the US retail sector. The retail sales in US declined to 1.2% in the month of September. (Read article here). It is pretty obvious that export-driven Asia economies will be badly affected as the demand of US falls.
In Ridzuan’s email, I understand the anxiety faced by many startups in Singapore as funding activities will be greatly reduced due to the US subprime crisis. The market sentiment has been worsened when Singapore government has announced that Singapore has entered into a technical recession. A technical recession refers to 2 consecutive quarters of contraction. (Read article here)
For those who are involved in a high burn-rate technology early-stage startup, it is going to possess a really big problem in your venture as many PE/VC are reducing their positions instead of investing more on new ventures. In fact, big MNCs are taking the opportunities to look for “bargain” in the market. M&A will still remain strong despite the global meltdown but that only benefits private companies which have reached a certain scale (Read article here). For those startups that are still in the infant stage, better know how to control your spending. Only the Fittest Survive! If the company can pull through the bad weather, the market will definitely value it differently.
This blog post is not meant to discourage passionate people who are starting up. In fact, I admired people like Ridzuan and Kelvin for taking the path of an entrepreneur. Bad time doesn’t always mean problems. It possesses opportunities too. As mentioned by Ridzuan and Bernard, it is the best time to hire talented people since the big players have already reduced or froze hiring.
If you haven’t read Ridzuan’s email, you can access from here.