I’m writing from Limassol, on I’m not even sure which day of staying indoors. On 11 March, the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic. On 16 March, Romania declared a state of emergency. Here in Cyprus, the authorities announced closures and increasingly strict measures in the middle of the month. Flights are being cancelled one after another, borders are closing, and the world we knew three weeks ago feels very far away.
I don’t know how long this will last. Nobody does, and anyone who tells you with certainty that it’s two weeks or two years is guessing. What I do know is what a crisis looks like from inside a company. I’ve been through one before, in 2009, and came out of it with scars. So I want to write down my first lessons now, while it’s all still raw. Not as a sermon, but as a checklist for myself and for the entrepreneurs I’ve been talking to these days.
What I learned in 2009 and don’t want to forget
In 2009 I was forced to sell my majority stakes in MarketOnline, Mediadot and Azerty (three Romanian e-commerce and online businesses). Not because I wanted to, but because the alternative was bankruptcy. I regretted that decision for a long time. But looking back, the decision itself wasn’t the biggest mistake. The mistake was getting to a point where I had no other option. I was overexposed, with too little in reserve, and I reacted too late.
Also in 2009, in the middle of that crisis, I started Floria, an online flower shop. So I know the other side too: good things can be born in bad times. But that comes later. First, you have to stay standing.
1. Cash before anything else
The first thing I’d do today if I were running a company day to day: a simple spreadsheet with the money in the bank, the payments you’re sure to receive and the bills you absolutely have to pay over the coming weeks. Not the annual budget, not the growth plan. Just one question: how many months can I survive if sales suddenly drop by half? And what if they almost stop?
Then cut whatever isn’t essential, quickly. Subscriptions, campaigns that no longer make sense, anything that can wait. And talk to your suppliers and landlords. Now, not in a month. Everyone is in the same boat, and an open conversation about deferring a payment or temporarily reducing the rent is much easier when you’re the first to call, not the last one who stops paying. I said it in my lessons from 20 years in business: cash is oxygen. Right now you can see that more clearly than ever.
2. People and the truth
Your team is scared. They have kids at home, elderly parents, mortgages. The worst thing you can do is stay silent. People fill silence with scenarios darker than reality.
Tell them what you know and what you don’t. Tell them what you’re doing to protect the company and, as far as possible, their jobs. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. If hard decisions are coming, it’s better they hear it from you, honestly and early, than from office gossip. And before money, think about their health: anyone who can work from home should be working from home, starting today.
3. Move everything you can online, now
Meetings, sales, customer support, signing documents, onboarding. Many companies have put off going digital for years because “it works fine as it is”. Well, as of this week, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be perfect. A video call and a shared document today are worth more than a perfect system three months from now.
Remote teams aren’t new to me. Two years ago I wrote about how to lead a remote team, and the principles still hold: clear rules, short and regular check-ins, trust, and measuring results rather than hours spent in front of a screen.
4. Talk to your customers
Don’t just send them a generic email about “the measures we are taking in the current context”. Call them. Ask what’s hard for them right now, what they need, what has changed on their side. Some will postpone orders. Others will have new needs they didn’t have a month ago. The only way to find out which is which is to talk to them.
And be fair with them. When all this is over, customers will remember who helped them and who took advantage of the panic.
5. Don’t make irreversible decisions in a panic
This is the lesson I paid for most dearly. In a crisis, pressure pushes you toward fast, final decisions: sell, shut down, lay everyone off, sign whatever offer is on the table. Some decisions do need to be made quickly, that’s true. But first ask yourself: can this be undone? If yes, make it and adjust as you go. If not, sleep on it, talk to someone you trust, run the numbers one more time.
Whoever shows up now with a “quick” offer to buy your business isn’t doing it out of love. I’m not saying refuse everything. I’m saying don’t accept just because you’re afraid.
6. Think in scenarios, not certainties
Since nobody knows how long this will last, a single plan makes no sense. Make three simple ones:
- A few weeks: restrictions last about a month, then activity gradually returns. What do you do to be ready for the restart?
- A few months: restrictions on and off, sharply reduced sales into the summer or autumn. What do you cut, what do you keep, who do you renegotiate with?
- Longer than that: a lasting change in how people buy, work and travel. Does your business model still make sense in its current form?
For each scenario, write down a few signals that would tell you you’re in it. That way you stop reacting to every headline and start reacting to data.
7. Look at what is growing, too
Not the whole economy is stopping. Some things are growing right now: online shopping, home delivery, remote work tools, digital services of all kinds. People are staying at home, but they still eat, still learn, still need to communicate and be entertained.
Say you run a restaurant: maybe delivery, which used to be a side channel, becomes the main one. Or a physical shop: maybe this is the moment to build, in a few days, the online store you’ve been postponing for years. I’m not saying this is the time to profit from other people’s misfortune. I’m saying people’s needs don’t disappear, they move. And whoever moves with them stands a better chance.
The part you can’t put in a spreadsheet
Beyond business, there’s the human side. I’m lucky to be at home with my wife and kids, and that means a lot. But it’s strange to know you can’t just get on a plane to Bucharest whenever you want. There isn’t much I miss about Romania, only my friends, and I usually fixed that by visiting often. Now we talk on video calls and ask each other “how are you doing?” more often than ever. Maybe that’s one of the few good things about these days: we remember what matters.
Take care of yourselves and your people. Companies can be rebuilt. People, much less easily.
Instead of a conclusion
I don’t have complete answers. I’m writing them down as I see them now, in March 2020, knowing that in a few weeks I may see things differently. But I believe the principles will hold: protect your cash, tell the truth, move online, talk to your customers, don’t decide in a panic.
What did you do in the first days? Which decisions have you already made, and which are you putting off? Write to me. I’d like us to learn from each other now, when it really matters.