Our reigning web entrepreneur guru, Paul Graham, is questioning how this recession will affect start-up markets. We’ve seen a ton of hand-wringing going on over the state of the world market lately.
Here’s the thing that I’ll say which is different from what everybody else says: We’re going to survive.
Yes, believe it or not, we’ll make it! We’ve seen this before during the Web Bubble. Lots of web companies died off in a hurry, but did you ever notice that these were companies which weren’t based on a very good idea to begin with? The hardy companies that knew how to really make money kept going; they even got richer during the worst of the Web Bubble!
Similarly, this recession is hitting some people hard – but it’s mainly hitting the people who were being foolish with their money to start with. Yes, I said it! The millionaires have lost their shirts in the stock market, and the people who treat houses like horses at a race-track, buying them just to flip them, are now out of their investment. But the working Joe and Jane are just going on the same way they always did.
If your income is derived from an online source, you have an advantage that few possess. Your income is not tied to any one country’s economy! You can work with companies and individuals all over the world. Even if the economy in the United States is tanking, you can find a booming market in Canada, and there’s a customer or client. So it is also true for business between Australia and Great Britain. Or between India and Romania.
There’s a lot of panic going on, and that’s causing some job loss. That’s a shame, because it really is more panic than it is anything else.
