As start-up jobs dip, now is the time to support our venture businesses more than ever before
It’s an ominous time for start-ups as 2020 creeps towards its midpoint.
To try and describe the current situation that start-ups exist in would no doubt be walking on already firmly trodden ground, as both the news cycle and the industry itself have already painted a rather grim picture of current events.
Instead, perhaps the situation can be surmised with the opening line of the American National Venture Capital Association’s most recent special report on the effects of Coronavirus.
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
And as venture spending slows down, private funding cuts are costing new startups their chance at making a difference.
Many ideas that amazing start-ups have been built on are put under the pressure of an expiration date. Change is inevitable, that much remains true even in the unprecedented circumstances we now find the world in, and this can mean that yesterdays ideas can quickly fall by the wayside.
Without venture capital spending many potentially amazing ventures are simply being lost in the fold, shelved until ‘better times’ and forgotten about in favour of more traditional methods of innovation.
But it’s not just start-ups in the present that are suffering, as Coronavirus threatens future endeavours as well.
There exists, as always in a professional sphere, the possibility that more than just ideas and capital are lost when an industry experiences a downturn.
For start-ups, it is without a doubt the loss of skilled professionals that poses the biggest risk to our venture future.
In this respect, we can’t afford to not have skilled employees transitioning out of traditional workplaces and into the start-up industry.
The perceived instability of start-ups, although largely blown out of proportion, has become a focal point during this global pandemic. Those who may have intended to join the start-up workforce, or those who have unfortunately lost their start-up jobs may never return to the industry, and this is an unequivocally immense loss.
A loss not just for start-up employment, but for entire countries as well.
We live in a world where jobs growth is a constant demand of every global economy and citizens themselves are constantly rallying for more jobs and less unemployment.
In this respect, we can’t afford to not have skilled employees transitioning out of traditional workplaces and into the start-up industry.
This is not even to mention that many modern professionals (some of whom go on to be leading specialists in their respective fields) were able to land their first position in a niche industry due to a start-up company giving them the chance they needed.
A fall in start-up employment isn’t just a case of ‘risky businesses’ going under due to their own hubris, It’s the lives and livelihoods of highly specialised workers whose professional skills may languish if they are forced to seek another means of employment.
But here’s the scariest part about losing start-ups at the rate we currently are.
So much of our current society, from infrastructure to our social systems are built on start-ups, that their loss in great numbers has the potential to set us back long after Coronavirus has released its grip on the world.
…there simply may not be enough viable candidates in specific fields once this crisis ends.
A deficit of research and development will no doubt leave a void in the experimental technology sphere that may take years to be overcome. Think-tanks working to push the boundaries of our collective betterment may simply cease to exist as we know them.
The loss of innovation and thought leaders in industries that rely on creating mechanisms for change may see entire societies who once enjoyed a steady stream of advance now scrambling to regain their footing in the world.
Not to mention that for companies who rely on venture capital investiture to supply them with fresh ideas or good investments, there simply may not be enough viable candidates in specific fields once this crisis ends.
Which is why the focus now needs to be on supporting start-ups and giving them the confidence that they need to survive.
The possible losses laid out in this article are no doubt a single drop in the lake of unwanted potential outcomes that a future without a strong global start-up industry could hold if nothing is done.
The onus now is on established companies to place at least some of the confidence lost from the start-up industry over the last few months back where it’s needed most.
Find a start-up, one driven by passions, one that can achieve its goal given the right support and invest in their future, for the betterment of everyone else’s.
The world stands to lose far more from a decimated start-up industry than it stands to gain by holding its hand and playing it safe during this time of trial.
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