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11 years since RIP Good Times. Is Winter coming for startups?
11 years ago Sequoia released the “RIP Good Times” Presentation. With the financial crisis meltdown, it was clear that “winter is coming” for startups.
Even though VCs are sitting on large cash reserves, many economists indicate a slowdown in 2020, so it’s prudent to prepare for winter.
Rip Good Times, Sep 2008
So, is if it’s business as usual and the markets continue to go up is there even a reason to change anything? Like in the Ant and the Grasshopper fable, I would encourage entrepreneurs to keep chugging forward, but there are enough indicators to take a breath and think about what if winter comes early.
While VC investing is at an all time high, and funds remain with plenty of dry powder, take into account that capital may not always be so available. Brad Feld, recently advised funds to ‘slow down’:
“If you talk to LPs today, there is a lot of anxiety about the increased pace at which funds have been deployed, and there has been a two year cycle in the last kind of two iterations of this. I think you’re going to start seeing that stretch back out to three years”.
Brad Feld, Foundry Group
