5th in our five-part special series, Fuqua Entrepreneurs’ Insights on the Road Ahead
Shankar Musunuri: Leaders need to stay positive and continue to motivate your teams. Life won’t be the same for next 1-2 years. However, this pandemic will pass eventually. You need to be strong and compassionate as a leader. You have to make sure that you are ready for employees to come back to work after restrictions are lifted. You have to focus on your employee’s well-being.
David Snow: Understand what the “new normal” will be. That is where the growth and the opportunity will be. The winners will be those who place bets in the new normal.
Brian Hamilton: If you look at the history of the capitalist system, although it acts imperfectly, it acts well. The model is good. Here in the US, we are resilient. So, although it is a kind of platitude, I tend to think that things will be fine over time.
If you are an entrepreneur, focus on what you can control and vociferously and ignore what you cannot control. Be disciplined on this vital point.
Amit Sharma: Getting experience through working at large, established companies can be a great way to identify entrepreneurial opportunities to launch when the timing is right.
Hetal Pandya: Continued attention to the bottom line—profitability—is imperative. It is extremely important and most startups need to at least understand how to figure out a plan to be cash-flow positive.
Beverly Sobel-Radler: Stay flexible, and rely on a network of folks to bounce ideas off of, and build a broader perspective of the economy and your place in it. Our own view is skewed by our own experience, keep open to lots of inputs, especially those who are operating in the same space (physically, economically, market-space, geographically, etc.).
And one prediction for the next internet product sensation…
Andy Horwitz: If someone wants to fund/invent an economically priced hazmat suit that safely supports the consumption of alcohol at social gatherings – I think that would be in high demand right now! And maybe they can be made in team colors for attending sporting events etc.
I’ll admit, I’d buy one!