A few weeks ago, the world was going into complete lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. We all had to adjust and adapt amidst a great deal of uncertainty, but for startups and SMEs, this had a particular impact because:

• by definition, startups are companies in the early stages of their lifecycle that are fighting for survival
• most of them have not even reached the break-even point, let alone generated revenue
• they do not have large cash reserves to survive without income for very long
• often, they lack the support of experienced advisors to turn to

Help for entrepreneurs: How to face this crisis as an entrepreneur

This is the first of three webinars in our Q&A series on crisis management (read on to learn more about this special), in which our CEO, Jean-carl Cohen, answers the question: What is Octopush doing to survive this crisis?

Here is a brief summary of what we discussed:

Priorities we have established

1. Preserving the company
2. Preserving the team
3. Launching emergency measures

The Octopush response

• Monitoring performance in real-time every day: daily revenue, traffic, number of customers, sign-ups, expenses
• Renegotiating everything we can to reduce our expenses
• Pausing all ongoing projects that involve significant investment
• Creating different risk-level scenarios to have various plans we could turn to in case of changes (optimistic scenario, moderate scenario, pessimistic scenario)
• Significantly reducing our marketing budget (~40% reduction)

Key aspects of our approach

• maintaining transparent and fluid communication with all team members
• exploring new possibilities that could flourish under these circumstances
• being as agile as possible
• continuing the conversation with other stakeholders to learn and explore better ways to cope with this crisis

In the second part of the webinar, Xavier Gilleron from Lex Consulting advises us on how start-ups in France can take advantage of the government support package for small businesses.

Watch the full webinar here:

About the Crisis Management Q&A series

After spending 3 days going back and forth, making different decisions each day, consulting professionals from various industries, debating scenarios with fellow entrepreneurs, and reading a lot of content, we have come to the conclusion that to navigate this situation with as much wisdom and calm as necessary, we must do so as a community. This situation has left us in such uncharted territory that we feel it is only by reflecting together and combining everyone's knowledge and experience that we will be able to figure out how to stay afloat.

We have decided to organize a series of 3 remote events to discuss crisis management as a community, based on 3 important topics:

1. How to deal with this crisis as entrepreneurs
2. What advice are we receiving from experienced advisors?
3. What are the risks of remote work: a cybersecurity overview [coming soon]