Friday, May 15, 2020

PPP is a chance to Pause, Plan and Pivot

 


PPP is more than just a Payroll Protection Program, it is a chance to Pause, Plan and Pivot.

There are any number entrepreneur/investor idioms being thrown around about how to run your business in a crisis: fix the plane while flying is the one being tossed our way.

We are in the midst of the third cataclysmic economic event of our company’s life -- We raised our first round of financing just weeks before the dot com bust, launched our business nine months before 9/11, and then we purchased a business that sold into the financial markets just months before my CFO came to me and said, “Lehman Brothers can’t pay their bill.”  I told him he was nuts.

Years ago, during one very productive time a member of my team asked: “We feel like Lucy in the chocolate factory, when do we exhale?”

There is never a break, the machine keeps producing candy, the clock keeps ticking, but now we are being given a moment to breathe, sharpen the saw, check the compass, fill the tank.

The PPP program, while not perfect, for many companies is doing exactly what it set out to do:  help businesses keep their employees while they reassess and recalibrate in a market that’s been deliberately shut down. And I think it’s a perfectly good way for the government to act at this moment without precedent.

There are lots of arguments regarding government help for businesses in times of crisis, but what is a business to do?  Currently the government requires us, for the public good, to move from our office, set up our employees to work remotely, and try to sell our wares in an economy that we are deliberately contracting.

So the crie de coeur of an entrepreneur is to pivot.  Change directions.  Make ventilators not cars, hand sanitizer not gin. But not everyone can and so instead of crashing the plane this program says we’re gonna give you 8 weeks to pay your employees, bring back those you may have furloughed and figure out how turn to navigate.

The government here is acting as a partner and saying, “Look, we’re gonna shrink your market and squeeze some of your customers and maybe even your margins, but instead of figuring this out in mid-flight, we’re gonna build a runway for you in the middle of the ocean, let’s see what you can do.”

When the program was announced we didn’t give it much thought because our first instinct is always to turn inward, toward the team, our group of advisors, never to the government. 

But we’re a midsized company.  We’re not too big to fail. We’re too important to fail. 

Too important to our employees.  Too important to their families, to their children and their parents and their mortgage-holders and their insurance agents and their car leaseholders and their pets and their co-workers and our office leaseholders and our health insurance company and the hundreds of partners, customers and vendors who rely on the protection of this paycheck, from us.

This plan was conceived to help small companies and their employees.  We’ve been given the space, now it’s up to us to get back in the air and soar.

Monday, May 4, 2020

Graduation Cancelled, Life Postponed, the Kids are Alright





















Mine was cold and rainy.  Hers was sun-drenched.

We drank cheap champagne. Really cheap. She ate expensive Zingermans, and without the wait.

Someone must have had a disposable camera and taken these lovely pictures that show the grayness of the day and the distinct lack of pomp and circumstance.  Her day was meticulously documented on Snapchat and Instagram.

This weekend my daughter graduated from the same university I left 31 years ago.

Our speaker was unremarkable.  I had to Google the speech to remember who spoke and what he said.

She watched on Zoom.  Some friends put together a makeshift commencement speech and everyone worked really hard to make it nice.

Graduation is like New Year's Eve, lots of build up and often, no delivery.

Had we been in Ann Arbor there would have been complaints:  it's too hot, it's too cold, this person spoke too long or too short.  There was none of that.

The moms made up a poem and read it to the girls. Throughout the weekend everyone got Face-time with the graduate and it was memorable.

There's been an outpouring of concern, lamenting what these kids lost or how they were gypped out of their day.

Rituals are important, they create memories.  But sometimes it's the hiccup in the line of rituals that makes them memorable.

The graduation cancellation is a microcosm of the past 7 weeks. The frustrations and disappointments of daily life fade away and the world is a little fresher because we are putting a new stamp on it.

But I am impressed watching this generation surf these waves of disappointment: Interviews on hold, jobs postponed, internships cancelled, plans changed.

In the words of Pete Townsend, "The Kids Are Alright."

There have been tears during these four years.  I remember the moment she found out she had gotten in.  It was during winter break, when "everyone" had heard the day before.  The website kept crashing and then, the tears.

The moment she walked into that dorm, we drove away and I thought we'd never have her home again...Tears, although they were mine.
The ups and downs of life at college are bound to bring successes and disappointments.  But the moment she got a text from the University saying "classes are cancelled, go home," must have been the worst.

She texted me and said, "I think I just walked out of my final college class." (tears)

That's the part that stings.  Her mindset had been:  Two more months of closure, final parties, final trips to Skeeps, final favorite meals, and then someone tells you that you've already had the last one.  No more classes, no more crowded bars or pre-games.  Those are hard moments for a college kid. For
anybody.

But they rolled with it, made it home (more tears), adjusted their lens, found new ways to apply for jobs and finish out their classes. And at the end of the weekend, after all the planning and re-planning the consensus was, they felt loved.

It wasn't what they planned, and that's okay. A great lesson to finish out their college career.  "The kids are alright."