The pandemic was especially tough on small business - this post is about their heroics and what so many have done to support them like Zoho did with their ESAP program for customers with less than 25 employees.
This is part of a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform and other series I launched last year.
Starting off is Michael Pinckney, founder and operator of a gourmet, hand-made cookie store based in Kirkland, WA. He was my colleague at Gartner, and had a long technology career which included stints at Microsoft, IBM and startups. He now makes wicked cookies including some infused with bourbon. He gives us a tour of his "plant" and recounts his heroics. He was squarely in the epicenter of the first outbreak in the US. He had to decide whether to shut down his business. Lockdowns made selling at the Farmer's Market unattractive. He had to switch to on-line selling. For various reasons he describes in the video, business has taken off and meeting the backlog of orders has required more heroics with distancing and talent constraints. See the fuller interview here
At 4.58 I describe some of the support I provided to small businesses in our community. I have heard of similar from many other colleagues. Not that we ourselves had great years, it comes from a belief that society is better when consumers have plenty of choices especially from entrepreneurial small businesses. I am pleased to report the businesses I profile have survived - some have even thrived - during the last few months.
At 9.10 Stephany Lapierre, CEO of TealBook shares how during the BLM crisis and for diversity initiatives since customers have leveraged their 800,000 certificates for black and minority owned businesses. More impressively they have helped a number of smaller businesses self-certify (she says 95% of them find formal regulatory certification too cumbersome or too expensive) and become more visible to prospective customers. In the longer interview here she also describes how in the first few weeks of the pandemic the UK government and a number of companies desperate for PPE supplies and looking for choices beyond China, leveraged TealBook for information on 60,000 ISO certified PPE makers.
At 12.43, Sue Fellows, Chief Customer Officer at Workfront describes how their customer, John Paul Mitchell Systems re-purposed their 40 year anniversary celebration budget to create a fund for hair care salons which were particularly hurt by the pandemic. The longer session with her is here
At 13.48, Jack Barrett, CEO of First Citrus Bank, describes the herculean effort to get SBA PPP loans for small businesses and the outpouring of gratitude that resulted. Many community banks stepped up to help the SBA process these loan applications - the bigger banks in many ways fumbled the ball. The longer interview is here
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