4 Steps to Surviving the Pandemic

In preparing for the post-pandemic new world in Funema, we designed a framework we used to rework our strategy and align our resources to the economic contraction juxtaposed with growth opportunities this pandemic has created.

The framework has 4 key steps: Contract, Consolidate, Experiment and Scale

1. Contract

Slow down your operations and give yourself the opportunity to take stock of the market, your model and your resources. A lot has changed, are your employees still aligned with the vision of your company? Is your vision still aligned with the market dynamics? Do you still have the right resources for production? Do you need to pivot or augment?

Asking these hard questions about your business can equip with you with much-needed clarity. Identify the gaps in your strategy, operations and growth model that cannot work any longer. List them down and ask for help.

2. Consolidate

The pandemic has brought about global disequilibrium of governments, societies and businesses, the external pressures of the economic aftershock can be overwhelming, if you don’t consolidate to build up your inner strength, you will be likely be crushed. The next phase you must consider after taking stock of the gaps in your business and market opportunity is to fill up those gaps with new strength. Will there be a need to learn new skills and expand your team?

1. Build operational capacity --> Evaluate the strength of your team within the context of the new normal, do they have the right skill sets? Evaluate yourself as a leader, do you have gaps? Do you have the adequate emotional intelligence to steer the ship in this tempest? I downloaded a leadership app called Yomento from the iOS AppStore that gives me short daily practical leadership exercises I can finish in 10 minutes. My current leadership Habit Index is 86 and my Trust NPS is +60 in a range of -100 to +100. My goal is to increase these scores by improving in the areas Yomento highlighted for growth. I also have a Certificate! My Yomento Certificate
2. Identify market gaps as new opportunities --> The slowdown in hospitality led to the boom of food delivery business models. Nature abhors a vacuum, the contraction in a sector could lead to the growth of another sector. Adjust your North star compass and steer your ship accordingly.
3. Align with the new normal --> The pandemic has pushed technology laggards into the circle of early adopters. More businesses are becoming digital thereby creating new market opportunities. From a product perspective, that can be seen as more potential customers to be reached through digital channels. From a service perspective, the "B2B" channel of these new customers would need help exploring & adapting to the new normal.
4. Think global --> In this crisis, a portfolio company of ours, www.pitchprint.com has had more success in growth because of its global approach from day one. In Q3 alone, they grew their ARR by 60% with the new deals they signed. Their model supports digital businesses and they made it a point to compete globally from day one rather than waiting till they have captured the African market.

3. Experiment

Learn the art of testing quickly to validate your assumptions before scaling. Resources are finite and you cannot afford to embark on a resource-intensive project without proving it can work on a small scale. Successful big things are composed of scalable, solid components. If the new market opportunity says there are 10,000 people needing your approach, test with 10, then 100, then 500 before scaling to 5000.

Your decision making should be as agile as possible. Teresa of Product Talk talks about using an opportunity solution tree for making agile decisions for your product

While a traditional product roadmap  depicts the route a product team will take to some uncertain outcome, an opportunity solution tree depicts all the routes a team might take to reach a known outcome. The route they will take is uncertain, but they are able to optimize that route based on what they learn in discovery. - Teresa Torres Source

Interestingly, this approach is similar to the quantum nature of photosynthesis in plants. In plants, a photon takes all possible paths at the same time to distribute the energy gotten from the sun during photosynthesis.

4. Scale

Your testing phase must be very short because resources are finite. You should begin scaling early once you’ve proven your assumptions. Leverage partnerships that could provide you access to your target market at scale.

Borrowing from quantum physics, you can explore the idea of "super positioning" your business where you execute on a lean budget while targetting a scale of 10x returns simultaneously

We applied this framework to restructuring the broad assumptions that would drive our OKRs for an 18 month period (Q3 2020 to Q4 2021) while leaving room for data gathered during quarterly key learnings to help us stay true to the best possible path to accomplishing our goals.

Need help in applying this framework to your business? I run customised sessions periodically that are co-created by my guests. You can register to be invited for the next session --> Sustaining your vision during a crises