Entrepreneurs: Learn How Companies Made Bold Changes In Wake Of COVID

Carrie Rubinstein, Apr 28, 2020

“Somewhere out there is a bullet with your company’s name on it,” said management consultant Gary Hamel long before Corona days. “You can’t dodge the bullet – you’re going to have to shoot first. You’re going to have to out-innovate the innovators.”

In this age of COVID, most startups are beginning to understand that the bullet is already headed their way, and unless they innovate and adapt fast enough, it could hit them. 

In many cases, startups recognize a major shift in market needs, others simply must shape and change products completely. 

Charlie Federman of  SilverTech Ventures, who has taken multiple startups under his wing, explains that as events began unfolding, this NYC venture fund and accelerator had one-on-one conversations with each of the CEOs about how the new realities will affect their companies and especially their customers. “We prefaced each discussion by acknowledging that we did not know if company leadership planned to make changes in response to COVID. However, if so, we emphasized the importance of working quickly, even at the risk of being imprecise. No one fully understands the severity and duration of this crisis, and there are simply too many variables to formulate an accurate plan.”

The fund’s portfolio raised over $100MM in the last 90 days, enabling many of the companies to use their expertise and resources to help the communities greatly affected by the crises. 

The companies that Federman and his team mentored are great examples of the many different changes that most startups had to make. 

SQream is a great example. Founded in 2010, the company provides enterprises with large datasets and important insights through SQream DB, a massive GPU accelerated analytic warehouse that handles complex queries. 

In the past 10 years, the company has rapidly expanded its services across industries. “The COVID-19 crisis almost blocked us all together from visiting our business prospects and clients,” says CEO Ami Gal. “We had to take some immediate steps, such as cutting expenses and non-core activities.” 

While the company took these measures, it turned to assist others in need: “As our technology can significantly help in the fight against COVID-19, we are collaborating with governments, cities, and healthcare institutions around the world. Our technology enables critical insights from huge datasets and different sources that are critical in the fight against this virus.”

Today, the company uses its platform in a very different method than originally attended. It helps prepare for the next COVID-19 wave, by predicting, among other things, how certain cities will be impacted and how different regions will behave in normalization stages. In addition, Sqream’s technology helps in the detection of people’s movements: “Putting privacy issues aside, it is clear that containing the infection will require the collection of data on zillions of human movements, locations and interactions in order to locate the main source, reduce infection and alert individuals to possible exposure. When datasets are huge, and large populations are involved, then we can help.”

Visit.Org is a platform that helps companies curate social impact team experiences, helping employees to have a hands-on impact on their local communities wherever they are around the world. Just before the crisis struck, the company raised seed funding and reached 25 enterprise customers, including 5 Fortune 500s, within 12 months since launch. In the face of current realities, the company had to make a quick and significant shift. Founders realized their market now has very different needs: “We had to adapt quickly. Companies will now be looking for ways their employees will engage the community online in order to enable team bonding around the greater good,” says CEO and cofounder, Michal Alter. “Companies are  under immense pressure from employees to give back to the community and support those who were hit the hardest by the virus.”

The company adjusted quickly and launched its new post-corona services to companies: “Volunteering from home with your team or individually can be as impactful for people in need as on-site volunteering.” Not only did its existing clients use these new services, but the company was also able to generate new clients across the country.

“You Can't Use an Old Map to See New Land”

Cinch is another SilverTech company that realized its client base had been affected and therefore decided to address the changing market needs. Since 2017 Cinch has been creating neighborhood commerce networks where businesses, brands, and neighbors collaborate around daily commerce and community functions. It has raised $10M for the purpose of creating new opportunities for local businesses by leveraging their proximity and relationships in the community. “The COVID-19 crisis forced us to change our principles and priorities to connect neighborhoods not just offline but online as well,” says Founder Maya Komerov. “We believe this crisis highlights the power of, collaboration is the key to neighborhood prosperity and health.” 

Within two weeks, the company set up a new service to complement its network of neighborhood businesses where consumers can order from one site items from many local vendors and get same-day consolidated delivery, minimizing the number of people who touch the delivery. 

The ability of some companies to adjust their services and assist in the fight against COVID-19 helped them raise millions more in funding.  

Igentify for example successfully raised $12.5M through current and new investors. Founded in 2016 by Dr. Doron Behar, this Israeli deep-tech company aims to become a global leader in digital health in the field of genomics. "Our expertise involve analyzing, interpreting, and transforming complex genomic, molecular results into personalized medically supervised genetic reports in a fraction of the time and cost," says Dr. Behar. In the last few years, the company promotes the scaling of genetic counseling abilities by combining clinical and genomic data and establishing machine-generated personalized counseling sessions.

As the crisis struck, the company analyzed the processes used to screen, triage, and report results for patients under investigation for COVID-19. “After identifying inefficiencies in the process, our teams worked to repurpose our platform to serve healthcare providers and diagnostic companies who wanted to focus more on their patients”. It is unprecedented that we will shortly have tens of millions of monthly tests and have healthcare providers in a position to properly communicate results and actions to people across a great demographic swath. Dr. Behar  insists, “our clients can quickly engage patient volumes at scale through digital multimedia and help the overtaxed health system to triage and provide information to patients.” 

The healthcare and the genomics industry are at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19, and the company seized this opportunity. “In times of mass medical needs, digital tools overcome time constraints, alleviate health risks, and allow medical teams to scale their patient intake and focus on patients in need."

Some companies whose services are becoming more essential for their customers are identifying new opportunities. “These firms are increasing their investment in product and sales,” adds Federman. Many were able to do so simply because what they are offering is in line with the new market needs. City Hive, which provides an online presence for wine and spirit stores has experienced nearly 25x growth in revenue and now serves thousands of stores across the country. Much of this growth came within the last 6 weeks.

Talisa, a platform for personalized jewelry, made by artists from all around the globe, has become very popular. “At a time when people are looking for ways to connect with their loved ones, sending families personalized jewelry and pieces of art is more meaningful now than ever,” said the founder, Lisa Silverstein. The company experienced tremendous growth during the month of April and has already sold more than it did in the first six months of 2019.

Aquant is another SilverTech company that adapted its services to meet new and immediate market needs. 

Aquant, founded 4 years ago, uses its unique AI-powered platform to provide field service professionals, who have various levels of experience, with the tools to solve problems correctly on the first try. 

The COVID-19 crisis has had a significant impact on the field service industry and the company has had to meet emergency needs right away. “Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent service providers (ISP) are taking precautions to keep their field service technicians safe and healthy while on the job,” explains CEO and cofounder Shahar Chen. “Many clients have shifted their main focus to critical issues instead of routine maintenance of equipment. There are varying ramifications across many fields. In the long term,” he adds, “the Coronavirus will increase existing industry challenges. A smaller workforce makes strain service teams that are already resource-strapped. As health and safety precautions continue, companies will need to shift and focus more on a remote resolution of customer problems. The need for technology that aids service workers in solving issues efficiently became even more critical.” 

The company immediately created a new line of services: a free self-service customer tool that supports the healthcare industry and helps reduce the number of in-person service visits made by field service teams, and a Service Leader Series with content and webinars that explores how service leaders are making short term pivots while planning recovery. “During this time of crisis, we’ve focused our marketing efforts on providing value for service leaders,” says Chen. “We’re offering free tools to keep their workforce safe, providing educational resources to help them make challenging decisions, and fostering connections across the field service community.” 

Making immediate changes, risking funds, and letting go of a successful idea is not easy, but when reality presents no other alternatives, it can lead to a surprising new path.