How Covid19 might affect the startups and Entrepreneurs
This month may 2019 is going to be a tough month for most of the companies. And out of all these startups are going to suffer the most. The reason is a virus that is affecting the lives of entire world populations. This is an unexpected pandemic that emerged in the Wuhan province of china that shattered the world economy and might lead to a recession if not dealt properly.
When the information about the virus has spread the world no one ever expected that it will lead to a situation where every company has to stop their operation and has been forced to make employees work from home. This unprepared pandemic has shocked the entrepreneurs and even already established enterprises.
Now only question that is in front of every one is when this is going to end. Is there a way out of this pandemic and resume operations.
Presently there is a lockdown in multiple places of the world and due to this lockdown and restriction imposed by the governments of different countries and states, companies, startups are forced to shut down their operation. To be exact are forced to stop operation and made them work from home wherever possible. But what about the startups such as Swiggy, Ola and other startups which if named are many which completely depend on consumers. If consumers are locked in their homes, these startups have no business to operate and their revenues are down to almost near zero in many parts.
When it comes to these kinds of situation one important this that is needed by any company or enterprise is to have enough resources to sustain in the market. But in case of startups, the excess resources are very less and they depend on the revenue generated from the operations for its existences. Hence to sustain in the market the only for them is to stop all the expenditure which most popularly done by firing the employees.
So what is the way forward for these Startups
Presently the only challenge that is in front of all of them is to sustain in the market by reducing all the expenditure. And wait the moment to resume all the operations when the situations proceed to normalcy. But if you see the situation the future seems uncertain. With no vaccine that is yet developed and no clarity on the availability of the vaccine and no proven method to completely stop the covid19 and resume to normalcy the future is obviously uncertain.
And even after the situation returns to normalcy the biggest challenges is that most os the market sentiment will be completely different and the startups have to adapt the new changes of the market. For example, swiggy which depends on restaurants and people ordering food. But due to covid19 and social distancing people are scared to order food from outside and this might affect the revenues very badly. And also there is another theory that most of the restaurants are going to close post COVID almost 80% is expected one. This is due to the losses due to lockdown among the restaurant’s owners which might force them to close and also people not visiting the restaurants due to social distancing norms
What is the positive outlook
So the situation is completely different. All the startups are going to enter into a new phase, a new challenge and anew market to face. And if there is a recession that if comes will affect the startups very badly that many might have no option but to close its operations.
If you see the great recession of 2008, one thing will be very clear. All the successful startups that we see today have emerged around that time. These emerged startups have made use of the market condition and developed innovative ideas to meet the market demand.
Hence on one hand it is a difficult time for many startups and on the other hand, this is an opportunity for many entrepreneurs to enter the new market with innovative ideas that solve the challenges of the market.