A STATISTICAL INSIGHT INTO STARTUP FOUNDERS R E SPONSE TO A GLOBAL PANDEM I C

A STATISTICAL INSIGHT

INTO STARTUP FOUNDERS’ RESPONSE TO A GLOBAL PANDEMIC

Gaper.io is on a mission to revolutionize the startup landscape.

From talking to hundreds of stakeholders, to consolidating data from all points, to bringing it in a simple format for our audience –we have built a stronghold for seekers to find information at their fingertips. We bring all the latest information on what is going on in the Tech World and beyond.

What is the top founder doing right now? What’s their bedside table read? Tips and tricks on getting it right? Take it from someone who made it right!

Gaper publishes the first survey for its audience to provide a snippet of all the conversations we’ve had so far. Owing to COVID, our questions were bound to elicit answers on how to navigate through this pandemic. A snapshot on hiring decisions, creativity lost or gained and even the future of office real estate. We held nothing back!

So without further ado, let’s get on with the report. Did you know that a whopping 60% startups stated that they would restructure their hiring process? Plenty of them are already on a lookout to outsource their HR responsibilities to companies who are more adept at taking up the headache of offshore hiring and compliance.

Only a meagre 14% said that they would not make any change in their hiring policies while 26% said they would freeze hiring for now.

The founders were next asked if creativity could be achieved over video conferencing. Surprisingly 32% of the respondents said yes. Not far behind, 30% said maybe, and 20% said no. The remaining 18% said that it was too early to gauge the potential of achieving creativity online.

In our next question, Ukraine snags the top spot as the area for hiring offshore software engineers. At 43% it has a comfortable lead ahead of all its counterparts. Brazil comes in at 29% while India and Pakistan trail at 16% and 12% respectively. It is prudent to note that although India seems to be a huge competitor and talent pool for the world to hire remote workers from, they did not manage to come on our respondents’ radar as a strong candidate. We have to wait and watch as to how things pan out in the coming months.

Our founders do not peg their bets on Airbnb, We, and Oyo to survive this pandemic wave. These top three unicorns have left their best days behind them.

An imperative question for a majority of our startup and VC founders is their insights on when they think VC funding would adapt and operate in the new normal. 9% are super positive that funding would come to rights in the last quarter of 2020. Well, we sure hope to see some normalcy this year –we wouldn’t mind a good turnabout for an extra trying year on all of us.

12% are a little more hesitant, but, just as hopeful and looking at the bright side, stating that they feel VC funding would come to rights in the 2 nd quarter of 2021. 25% think we can start seeing some movement in the last quarter of the same year.

54% of the respondents state that 2022 is the year when we will see higher capital injections into the economy. While this may not seem too far off into the future, for startups, this can prove to be disastrous. However, to sum everything up, all respondents do agree on one thing: VC Funding would never completely stop. There is a lot of money out there, it is just how risk taking or risk-averse any venture capital or investor is at this point in time.

While operating during this new normal, and how it accelerated Remote Work and Work from Home modes, we cannot deny the fact that it would and did considerably impact the real estate front. And 60% agree on one thing –they would be reducing their office real estate footprint while only 30% said they would maintain it. The rest of them stated that they already had a fully remote team, so office space did not impact them in the least.

In our bid to put forward the Top 3 favorites for most admired Startup Founders, it comes as no surprise that Elon Musk came on top with 21% voting for him. And why not, his efforts towards tech is no small feat and needs to be credited as such.

15% chose Melanie Perkins in their top 3 while 10% voted for Jack Dorsey.

Rounding off this survey we asked our interviewees to share their top reads on their nightstand. The books that stand out are i) Zero to One ii) The $100 Startup and iii) The Lean Startup.

So that’s all for now. Gaper.io shares its top 8 questions put forward to founders who shared their insights on the Future of Remote Employment and more.

These founders are working round the clock and ironically, a lot of them had previously said that the Future of Work is Remote. NO ONE and absolutely NO ONE would have thought of being forced to go remote, almost overnight. No industry was spared and everyone was left scrambling to make sense of a situation that probably hits the world once every 100 years or so.

We need to then realize that we must future proof our company NOW. Those who were already working remotely were spared the very worst of this. However, moving forward, there is no doubt that we need to start adapting what we learnt during this period. If anything, the promising unicorns not making it out of this alive, should be an eye-opening jerk to the startup world.