Navigating Disruption: Week 3
A Live Documentary of a Disruptor’s Disruption
We are “disruptors.” We are a healthcare technology start-up focused on eliminating waste in the healthcare system by disrupting traditional operating practices. But now COVID-19 has disrupted the disruptors. Throughout the pandemic, we will document the thoughts we have, the plans we make, the risks we take, and the choices we face. Here is our story, one week at a time.
Recap:
Week 0 — Flying High
Week 1 — The Crashing Lows
Week 1.5 — Our Ethos
Week 2 — Do the right thing
Week 3: The Plan for Strategic Burn
The impact of our Toolkit
The responses and feedback from our COVID-19 Toolkit have taken us by surprise. We knew it could be useful, and we hoped we were adding value, but we didn’t expect so many organizations to contact us. Emails and social media were alive with activity.
I particularly remember a call from a health system administrator in Southern California asking for additional tools. Lisa and I frantically wrote down the requirements, and after the call, we both realized the magnitude of their challenges and the need for a plan.
We became part of the solution! We immediately began updating our Toolkit
The Strategic Burn
It feels good to contribute, but the reality is we (intentionally) delivered our COVID-19 Toolkit free of charge — commensurate with our ‘Do-the Right-Thing’ company value. Therefore, it now becomes all the more imperative that we manage our burn rate if we are to survive the next several months. And ‘months’ is a long time.
First, we assessed our ‘emergency fund.’ How many days of cash-on-hand did we have? How long could we sustain without new revenue - AKA growth? Could we self-fund for at least three months? Four? We were pretty solid here, thanks to a conservative approach to finances.
However, we also made the difficult yet pragmatic decision to continue building the company, even if it meant spending our precious, finite funds.
While the internet is pulsing with advice and lessons learned from the 2008 financial melt-down on how to “control-the-burn,” we chose a decidedly strategic approach to our spending. We had to think long term. Based on our “SWOT” analysis in week 1.5, we decided that we need to make a few strategic investments.
- Product Development
We agreed to proceed with our original plan to add two new software engineers to continue the upgrades, expansion, and enterprise-hardening of our primary product.
2. Communication and Branding Strategy
We strongly felt it was time to revisit our branding, marketing, and communication framework, so we decided to hire a firm from San Francisco.
3. COVID Toolkit Development
As the first release had proven, there was a demand for our Toolkit. So, we need to continue its development.
True to our ‘agile’ background, we created a 90-day goal with a weekly release plan and mapped our strategic spend to the 90-day roadmap. We anticipated the disruption would be severe, but rather than looking at the glass as half-empty, we instead looked for the opportunities. How could we optimize the next 90 days?
Our thinking was that this crisis would eventually dissipate, and we wanted to be ready when it did: these were good investments. These are strategic investments. And the team was comfortable with the strategy.
On the expense front, we received some help. The startup hub, where our office is located, canceled our April payment while they continued to provide strategic advice, consultation and support— Thanks, Embarc Collective! All travel, from a business development perspective, was, of course, put on-hold, saving us significant dollars — not a small sacrifice for a firm that values face-to-face interactions.
An uneasy uptick!
Week three also saw an uptick in the number of VCs, investment, and research firms interested in Edgility. We calculated we had more calls and product demonstrations in the previous week and a half than in the last quarter. Something about this uptick was not adding up.
Week three presented the opportunity to re-evaluate, re-commit, and, where necessary, re-invent and re-commit to not merely surviving this crisis. We want to rise above it. And this week we took decisive strategic action towards that goal.
We could feel ourselves exhale — this week.
