Silicon Valley Bank – Imagine It Was Just a Dream

Wake Up. And Breathe…

Silicon Valley Bank – Imagine It Was Just a Dream

The last few days have been some of the most traumatic ever for many in the SaaS and software ecosystem. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), would undoubtedly been a near extinction event for growth stage software companies across the world. They had become a very significant player in the global tech banking ecosystem and the potential disaster of a very large proportion of software companies not being able to access their funds, whether from customer revenue, equity or debt funding would not only have created chaos, it could well have precipitated a much wider global run on banks.

Fortunately, entrepreneurs, investors, SVB staff, industry bodies and let’s not forget, the US and UK governments, have been fast to move to ensure in different ways that those that banked with SVB are able to access their funds and continue normal operations. Of course, there will challenges to come, but the prospect of so many companies becoming insolvent has been averted.

This was probably the first social media bank run in history and it was not a pretty sight. From the run on the bank being accelerated by talk on social media, the instant experts who knew nothing, the hot takes, the pile ons from anyone who had a point to prove or a score to settle, social media has made the situation much worse. The last few days have been a horrible time to be an entrepreneur, or to work in a tech company, without the constant cacophony of uninformed opinion.

Thankfully, in the US and UK at least, there is some clarity now. Other countries are likely following their leads. We hope for the sake of the amazing people in this industry who work hard everyday to create jobs and do great things, that will happen very quickly.

What We Do Now

Imagine being a company founder who had left for a long weekend hike off-grid on Wednesday with no access to the internet to return early Monday morning, refreshed, revived and revved up for the week ahead. It turns out that being away for that time meant they missed all the drama.

Can you find that mindset after all you have been through? It is worth trying.

Take a deep breath, remind yourself that things are generally OK.

That stuff over the weekend about Silicon Valley Bank? Imagine it was just a dream

Let’s get back to work building great software and great software companies.

There will be plenty of lessons to learn from the events of the past few days but for now, let’s get back to building things.