It's easy to forget that many of today's tech household names began during very humble and recessionary times.

Credit Karma, WhatsApp, Venmo, Groupon, Uber, Instagram, Pinterest, Slack, and Block were all founded during the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. While the current public and private market downturn don't rival 2008 (yet), it's an amazing opportunity for builders everywhere.

You may be thinking: How could it be an amazing opportunity for builders to start companies in a market downturn where funding is so hard to come by? 

When funding is too easy, a lot of bad ideas are funded and a lot of founders lose sight of their mission, delivering value to their users, building a profitable business (or all of the above). They pursue scale at all costs, often prior to product-market fit, prior to identifying and refining scalable marketing channels, and prior to proving people actually care about their products. 

In times where funding is tighter, founders simply can't lose sight of these startup basics.  If they do, they're dead.  As Paul Graham (Founder of YC) often says:

"[It's] better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent. Ideally, you want to make large numbers of users love you, but you can't expect to hit that right away. Initially, you have to choose between satisfying all the needs of a subset of potential users, or satisfying a subset of the needs of all potential users. Take the first. It's easier to expand userwise than satisfactionwise."

It's time to build.  It's time to focus on making products and features that customers love.  That is your path through this current downturn, regardless of the size of your company and even if you're starting something new. 

This week, we'll talk about how downturns in public and private markets can often be massive opportunities to start something new and double down on the Product Management basics.

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