The only constant in life is change

I guess we all face too many depressing news headers these days. I just wanted to share some positives:

1. The crisis is an opportunity. We started Divante in the mid of the financial crisis of 2008/2009. We started with a product: Businesswiki. Nobody wanted :) We pivoted, few times - ok many times. Well, I guess we pivoted every 1-2 years in the beginnings to search our way and the traction. The only constant is: change.

The change means that maybe you need to stop doing the business as usual. Find new niche, figure out a new product, respond quickly to the situation, prepare plans A, B, C. It surely doesn't mean to wait and see.

2. Surviving the crisis is nothing easy, cool either fun. Let’s face it: it's hard. You’re cutting down non-essential costs, bounding hard to cash - and the cash flow is everything. You’re looking for leaner/more effective ways of doing daily things. The crisis will eventually pass away. Good habits will stay with your company and the culture. I remember that in 2009 we had an Excel spreadsheet showing us the cash flow for the upcoming 3 months. That was all our financial reporting tooling. We've been 10 ppl company. Now we're 270 - and guess what? We've got the excel file - pretty much similar to that one. It has more rows but you get the point. The crisis is all about discipline.

3. We all try to work remotely these days. After the first week, Divante is 100% remote I can say I’m super proud of our team. All daily routines are in place. All the projects go pretty much as usual. Billability is at the normal level - seems really OK. However, it’s not so easy as it might sound. I realized how difficult it can be - you have kids, working from a small flat where your spouse is trying to work as well and kids looking for your attention. It pushed me personally to organize better. Splitting my day between work and family.

4. What gets you here won't get you there. There is a cool book "Hard thing about hard things" on building the company. There's a really interesting observation in there on Wartime CEO and Peacetime CEO. Different situations different management styles. It can be a little bit crazy these days. We're at war and it's not a bad management style it's just how you pass through it. It's better to be a small company at this war because you can pivot easier.

5. I thought Divante is a pretty big company and .. well pretty slow. But I changed my view after this week. I'm so proud of our teams. So many initiatives started: Sales & Marketing started pro-actively searching the new clients from the industries less affected by the crisis. Tribe masters started calling out existing clients, checking how we can help them. Product Design and OpenLoyalty team prepared an e-book with solutions for the retailers in crisis (we'll announce it tomorrow), Tom + marketing team started TechToTheRescue.org. I can't believe it was so productive week. It was truly great, lean and effective.

The crisis helps you find the true leaders within your organization.

I see huge solidarity between companies - even former competitors, employees. The discussion usually starts with: how are things? Can I help you somehow?

People are good, this crisis won't last forever. Take care of your family, business and try to help the others.