Imagine being safe in group practice then walking into work one day only to find yourself out of a job. Happens everyday. This is the economic equivalent to being in a shipwreck and stranded on a desert island. What would you do?
Your first priority is to not panic. Panic will prevent you from calling up all your survival skills learned in school, training, and life. Time is of the essence since cash reserves will quickly dwindle away and if you don't start generating cash flow, you'll die. Panic just gets in the way and prevents you from developing a survival strategy.
Your first step is to make a business plan, set-up shelter, ie an office, and start foraging for food, that is customers. All this must happen simultaneously and in a timely manner. The survivor's business plan is a simple and rough one. You can revise it later. Just jot down your long term goals, your short term goals and needs and strategies to achieve them; should take about an hour. Your office can be virtual rather than physical and foraging for food really means to do what it takes to get customers. On a desert island, make a fishing pole or net. In start-up, get on the web and start answering your phones. I can't tell you how to make fishing gear out of bamboo, but I can tell you how to set up an effective and inexpensive web presence in under 1 hour.
I was inspired last night when watching Man vs Wild, on the Discovery
Channel. Aside from having to eat carrion, opening up on you own has
many elements of pure survival. I hope you enjoyed the first
installment of my new series, Doc vs World: Surviving Your Start-up.
Good luck.
The IU.
