Prosperity in Time

It’s official – or soon to be – we are either in a global recession or possibly something worse.   Money is tight, and it is likely to get tighter.  Jobs are scarce, and the chances of getting a new job are going to get slimmer – even for the highly educated.  This isn’t the late 90′s, when time and talent were so tight that a burger flipper could get recruited as the CEO of a venture-backed startup.

That’s the bad news.

And there isn’t a lot of good news….except this.

As money becomes tight, and as high-paying jobs become scarce, time returns as the key unit of investment in new growth.  It has always been true that growth is driven by people with different knowhow coming together and creating new value.  During periods of economic prosperity, convincing people with knowhow to spend their time takes a lot of money.  They don’t really need that money to live.  They need it because…well, because it’s what they think their knowhow is worth at that time.  Hence, we talk about needing $2-$4 million for startups that require virtually zero tangible resources. Beyond paying for expensive talent, why exactly does a Web 2.0 startup need $4 million bucks?

Four weeks ago, a team that thought it needed $2 million to start their business now needs…practically nothing.  The team is young and can live with Mom.  And now they can convince friends with skills to forget about finding another job, live together cheaply, and build their dream. Instead of offering options and six-figure salaries, they can offer a shared wifi hub, the spare room, and all the ramen you can eat.

I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, but it seems to me that if hard times make people remember that it is ok to need each other, and if they make us more willing to invest our time in each other, then the bad times ahead will turn out to be better than the ‘good times’ past.

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