Stay safe & continue your pursuit to prosperity

Entrepreneurs are a tough lot with a resilience to emerge stronger at the end of any trying time. The stories we are hearing from our startup engagement program – Intuit Circle’s members, affirm that belief.

As a company that works so closely with entrepreneurs, I can say with certainty that they have the resilience to emerge stronger at the end of this trying time we are going through. We know their worlds and have watched them marching undeterred through innumerable challenges. And the stories we are hearing from our startup engagement program – Intuit Circle’s members, affirm that belief.

Here’s from one of our own, a member of the Intuit Circles program, Gauri Gopal Agarwal – founder of Skilled Samaritan. Hers is a social enterprise that employs women artisans from rural areas. Now her business is all about people to people connect. This means in this social distancing phase, all actions for Skilled Samaritan are halted, right? Well, you will be surprised to know how active Gauri and her team of artisans are. They are utilizing mobile tech and other video conferencing facilities to stay connected to the women based out of remote villages. A cluster manager, one among the women artisans, helps organizing these virtual connects. Gauri says they are using this time to fine tune their standard operating procedures (SOPs).

The going is not so easy. For some of us there are zero earnings. But I know Gauri’s spirit is a reflection of how every startup owner is embracing this change and braving through this testing time. Intuit Circles, as their partner, stands by everyone who dared to dream and chose to walk the less traveled path. In service to our support for small business entrepreneurs, we have put together the following tips that can help businesses step up their financial preparedness and ensure minimum impact from the lockdown.

Build out a business continuity plan: Jot down worst-case scenarios and potential business struggles. Then finalize a plan for dealing with those problems before they arise. This is your guide to moving forward with speed and confidence. 

Create a communication strategy: This should be internal and external, to reduce confusion. Decide what you need to tell investors, employees, and contractors, and create a chain of command so messaging goes through proper channels.

Build a supply continuity plan: This plan focuses on getting all the goods and resources you need from alternative sources, should a vendor cease production.

Explore virtual and e-commerce options: If your business relies on face-to-face contact or in- store purchasing, now’s the time to think outside the box. Consider virtual meeting rooms for consults and services and online retail spaces for goods.

For more such insights on how to stay on top of the business no matter what the situation is, visit QuickBooks small business help portal. 

Intuit is also making a lot of effort in response to the current situation. We are putting an investment of more than $8 million to work through four initiatives:

• To help consumers in need, we are donating funds to support the people served by organizations that are providing relief during this uncertain time – the United Nations COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Intuit QuickBooks is teaming up with GoFundMe to create a Small Business Relief Initiative to help small businesses raise money to overcome the challenges caused by COVID-19.
• We’re helping QuickBooks Capital customers with upcoming payments and access to funds. Customers who, due to hardship from this pandemic, are struggling to make their loan payment, can receive up to an 8-week deferral on loan payments with no interest charged.
• We’re helping QuickBooks Payments customers get access to cash more quickly with our QuickBooks Instant Deposit offering which makes cash available on the same day.

Find more details here. 

We want every small business owner to know that we are with you. With 2000+ startups from India as its members, Intuit Circles is bringing together the energy of all our founders into one place in the form of a community.

I request every business owner to share their thoughts and experiences with us on how you are tackling with the COVID-19 situation. 

You can leave a comment here or visit www.intuitcircles.com, and sign up by clicking on “Join as a Startup.” You will land on the community home page where you will see the CONVERSE tile. Click on that tile to start a discussion thread and share your story.

Until we connect next, stay safe and keep dreaming big.