[Editor’s Note: This post originally featured a Viddler video that is no longer available due to the platform’s shutdown.]
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Invest in early stage startups in a recession
A recession is the perfect time to invest in startups because
1) You get MUCH better deals with valuation
2) Each dollar gets you more stuff
3) A much bigger talent pool (not just labor pool) that are unemployed and ready to move to a startup
4) Competition Haven: large companies are not expanding but shrinking; new companies are scared to start
One of the few problems with startups in a recession, is that they have no cash to take advantage of the benefits. But if you are an investor, you solve that problem! Before your cash was just necessary to not fall behind. Now your cash becomes a competitive advantage!
Startups should not waste time raising money. Focus on being lean and sustainable
Raising money is time consuming and dysfunctional for growth (like digging for water in a desert). Instead of begging for money from people who don’t want to give you, focus on making your business more valuable.
Be as lean as possible. Your goal is not to run fast like a cheetah and burn out. Your goal is to be a cockroach and survive lava. As time goes by and the economy recovers, you will be the last man standing. Battles are won not by how many enemies each side has killed, but who has the last men standing.