COVID-19 Epidemic - Netguru Founders' Letter

The COVID outbreak affects us all and everyone’s scared. Together with Kuba Filipowski earlier this week we’ve sent the following ‘Founders’ letter’ to the whole team at Netguru.

The COVID-19 epidemic will have a substantial impact on our lives and businesses, and will make the coming few months difficult and uncertain. Together with Marek and the team, we are working on mitigating the potential negative impact of the crises. We will also be trying to work out how we could take advantage of the opportunities it might bring along.

As a company, we are in quite a good shape: we are profitable, our cash flow is fine, and we've got returning clients, who are still willing to invest in projects that we are working on. In Netguru, we can easily work remotely, and we are still getting new business enquiries and closing new deals. The business is healthy, and we are not anticipating any problems with solvency.

What we also know is that no Netguru team members have fallen ill yet, and the same applies to your relatives. Let us hope that this favourable situation will remain with us for as long as possible.

At the same time, we are aware that the times are not easy. All the information about the pandemic is disturbing, and sitting at home stops being a nice distraction after about a week, becoming a difficulty in itself instead – especially when you have children who cannot go to school or you are home alone.

As soon as such events ensue – events that are out of our control – each one of us keeps asking themselves "what can I do?" What we can always control is how we react to what happens around us. Giving advice in such circumstances is far from easy, but let me share a few ideas on what you could do:

1. Take care of your own and others' health – take heed of the advice given by experts.
2. Support each other. Sometimes, it is enough to chat for a few minutes about what is going on and how we feel about it. You can also hop on a video call and have a virtual breakfast together.
3. Have a look around and see whether you could help anyone. Every one of us is bound to have a friend or a family member who finds the situation difficult. Be it your grandad, who is afraid to go shopping or a friend, who has her own business and has now experienced a sudden drop in revenue.
4. Do not spread fake news and misinformation. Inaccurate information or advice might cost lives.

This pandemic will end – as any other pandemic in history. We just do not know when it will happen or how the pandemic will change our world. But still – it will pass.

Let us stick together and, what's really important these days, let us take care of our health.

Stay safe!

Kuba & Wiktor