Currently, I split my time between Boulder and San Francisco. I’m an active promoter of Boulder-based startups (IntenseDebate, Filtrbox, Flingit Girl, anything Ingrid Alongi builds, Mondo, anything Neil Simon builds, Iggli…to name but a few…) and have friends in the SF startup scene, as well. Like many of you, a lot of my time online is spent at sites created by either Boulder or San Francisco startuppers. That’s the backdrop.

So it was with excitement that I accepted an invite from Shivani Sopory, a founder of Women 2.0, to an event they were hosting in Palo Alto: “The Finance Crisis and Your Startup.” I’m glad I went because, for me, it was a cultural experience. As the panel moderator noted, “in Silicon Valley, this is the air we breathe.” What follows are my notes from the event, breathing, as I made them, Silicon Valley air. {If you’d like to see the live tweets* I made, there’s an archive.} I looked around the room and saw, of about sixty people, I was the only person using a laptop.

Before the actual panel kicked off (around 7p) there was much networking. I met Tessa and swapped Peace Corps stories with her. She spent two years in Kenya and now works for The Institute for the Future. She demo’d Superstruct, a Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Game for the Future that had launched the day before. Basically, there are Super Bad Things and you get to build Super Structures to Destroy Them. Awesome!

The panel started out on a bit of a down-beat. The presidential debates were happening as we started. The economy and its effect on your startup was essentially the topic of the panel. When the economy is bad, what does that mean to your new venture?

Be a Painkiller. Not a Vitamin.

Several of the VC panelists echoed this sentiment. Bad economy. Your business must be a pain killer. Vitamins won’t make it through the downturn.

The first time I heard one of the panelists say that, I just noted it and kept typing. By the second or third time I became concerned.

I don’t take painkillers and I’m not interested in being in the business of producing them. A painkiller is a temporary fix to a bigger problem.

Painkillers numb you out. They may make a situation more tolerable in the short run but they are addictive and dangerous. If Silicon Valley is about painkillers, Boulder is about alternative therapies. Get out into the mountains, ride a bike, do yoga, spend time at a cafe. Don’t kill the pain. Learn to work with it. Let it inform your decisions but don’t let it dictate your behaviors. A quick fix is a shortcut. Shortcuts, as we learned in grade school, only work well once in a while. You might get funding, but at what cost?

So, it comes down to painkillers or vitamins? I have a third option: learn about self-care. Create systems that are sustainable and not just bandages. Rather than reacting to the economy in a panic, reaching for a bottle or pill, take some time out for self-reflection. Get back to the basics. Figure out how to bootstrap it and ride the storm with grace, rather than numbing out.

The Best Brand for Your Buck? Hint: it’s Unsexy.

The panelists didn’t beat up on “lifestyle” businesses, but they did say the businesses that will fare better during an economic downturn are “clean tech, software, online education…,” unsexy businesses. They added that if, “you have a brand advertising play, you better figure out another model.” Another panelist chuckled and said, “brand will fall off the map.”

If Silicon Valley is poppin’ pills and breathing Valley Air, it may also have a split personality on The Brand Question.

This week, next door to the building where this panel happened, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Mr. Schmidt said, “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

Hm.

So there you have it, people. Brands are out.

No, brands are in!

Out. In.

Listen, I know a lot of you reading this blog are in PR, branding, evangelism and marketing. So, this is my take to those starting businesses, (let’s call you a Creative):

Stick to your beliefs. If you are a talented brand person, designer or startupper, continue building. It may not be the place the money’s at in the short-run, but you know what you are best at. If money is tight, read on.

Establish systems. Goes without saying. When someone says, “how much do you charge an hour?” know the answer. When someone asks how much funding you are seeking, as a startup, don’t hem and haw. Have a system. Know your advertising rates. Talk to experts in the field, attend panels with people who know more than you. You get paid per blog post? Do you know the going rates? Know them. Reliable systems are more important than ever during “times of crisis.”

Diversify your creative portfolio. One thing this panel of VCs said that really stuck with me is that the women that established Women 2.0 have nine lives. They are doing so much that it’s hard to keep up with them. That you’ll see more of this in the future.

If I had a crystal ball of my own future, I’m sure there would be more than nine projects in it at a time. That’s when I hit my stride, around project nine. Creatives will do well to have a portfolio that’s diverse enough to switch tactics when the economy hits a nosedive again. Diverse skill sets, not just things you dabble in. This is the one piece of advice that the panel shared with which I wholeheartedly concur.

Team up with folks who have different strengths than you. I’ve worked with a lot of Creatives over the past five years. One trend I’m noticing is that we tend to surround ourselves with other idealists. Why? Well, other Creatives are less likely to be insensitive. We’re more likely to tell you how great you are, how you’re the next hot designer. How you’re doing great.

What Creatives really ought to be doing is seeking out business people, financial types. People who will force us to get our sh*t together. The truth, hard as it is to admit, is that being creative and emotional isn’t going to get our bills paid. Getting serious about earning what you are worth and doing the work to get there will.

If you’re working on a startup or Creative, are you worried about the economy? If not, what are your strategies for getting through? If you aren’t going the “painkiller” route, why not? And if you are, how is it working for you?

When we get together and work with it head on, we get places. Share your passion and find it returned to you a hundred times over.

–
{I’ll be at the next Women 2.0 event on October 15th, live-tweeting again. Please join if you’re in the area!}

*A note on live-tweeting:

I have been live-tweeting events since July, 2007. That weekend I was at Blogher and used it for note-taking. It added a level of interactivity to the session that otherwise wasn’t present. At the time, I don’t even think people were using the “@” symbol to communicate with one another. It really was just an exercise in comprehension for me. I have always been a prolific note-taker. If I had had Twitter in college, I would have used that; I was the person people came to when they missed a class to get the notes. This is just a natural thing for me to do. I love it. I’ll be live-tweeting the next Women2.0 event, at their request, and getting free entry to it in exchange. My point, people, is that it pays off to be a nerd, to take notes, to sit at the front of the room and ask questions. Don’t be ashamed of it!