Ep. 36 SVB and WFIO Moments

While things seemed to be resolving, the past week have been incredibly stressful for any Founders who had their funds with SVB. Several of my clients and Founder Friends have been caught up in what is known is a WFIO moment. If you're not familiar with the term WFIO, it's one Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz uses. WFIO stands for, "We're Fucked It's Over." Having run my startup during the 2008 financial crisis (in fact we launched the week the first week of October 2008), having a banking crisis is one of the most WFIO type of moments. The challenges of a Seed Startup are supposed to be finding product market fit, building your team, and learning how to operate a business that hasn't figured out most of what makes a business successful. Having your bank go under with your funds is generally not on the startup Founders Bingo card. Fortunately, the FDIC stepped in and saved the game, but that was a close call. And a lot of Founders spent the week stressing out over whether they had funds to make their next payroll vs pushing their business forward. So what can we do in these extreme circumstances? This week I talk about: When staring at a huge problem (i.e. all of our cash is out of reach), how to break it down into the smaller problems and sequence them. How to get clarity by separating what's objectively true from fear and projection Finding hidden blessings and opportunities even (sometimes especially) in the darkest crisis Every time I hit a crisis in my business, it forced to me to get real about what was performing and essential, and what was not performing and a luxury.  Founders and companies that weather this storm will come through stronger. This 11-minute listen is chock full of hard-earned wisdom and will serve you well through big or small times of crisis. To your success, Steve STEVEAUGUSTCOACHING Helping Founders Build Rocket Ships PS I have one open spot to for a Seed Stage Founder to work with me one-on-one. If you're a Seed Stage Founder needing to accelerate your progress towards your Series A, let's talk.