With many small businesses struggling as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, startups are stepping in to offer free services to help small firms navigate the economic uncertainty. Whether it’s opening up their platforms to keep small businesses engaged with their local communities, or aggregating available resources and federal loan information for struggling firms, startup founders are using their knowledge, experience, and services to support other entrepreneurs in need of assistance.
We previously profiled two mobile app startups that retooled their services to help identify and treat people infected with the coronavirus. In the latest post in our continuing series on the ways in which startups and entrepreneurs are responding to the coronavirus outbreak, Engine spoke with two startup founders who are working to give small businesses the resources they need to stay afloat.
Personas
San Francisco, California
Personas is a B2B automation startup that helps small businesses aggregate business contact data and better understand their customers. With a focus on assisting other startups and tech companies, Personas gives marketing and sales teams the resources they need to connect their content with their unique audience segments. By utilizing Personas’ services—including a software as a service (SaaS) platform that works in tandem with a company’s sales tools— startups with small teams can easily expand the quantity and quality of their outreach efforts.
As the coronavirus began to spread across the United States, Conor Lee—Personas’ Co-Founder and CEO—began to notice the impact the virus was having on startups.
“I’m involved with our local startup community, and my friends have been talking about COVID ever since it started,” Lee said. “Whether startups have had to lay people off, or if they’re seeing a decline in sales, the virus is having a big impact. But i’m proud of how the community has come together to try and figure out ways to help other businesses and contribute their own resources.”
Earlier this month, Lee and several other members of the Personas team held a weekend hackathon to aggregate data that would be helpful for startups and other small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic downturn. The team pulled together a list of free and discounted SaaS products and services that startups can use to remain afloat during this uncertain time. Lee said he sees the platform as a way to also “help early-stage startups spread the word about what they do and acquire new users.”
The firm’s COVID-19 mini-site also includes a resource page with information about applying for available federal loans, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL). The Personas team set up a calculator to help startups estimate how much PPP funding they can receive, and also has an automatically updating spreadsheet of banks that are offering PPP loans.
Although the PPP loan program ran out of funding last week, Congress is in the process of allocating approximately $310 billion to the program, as well as another $50 billion for the EIDL program. Lee said they will update the site after Congress votes on the latest relief package, but he expressed concerns about the current allocation of emergency loans.
“I’ve heard it’s been really difficult,” Lee said. “A lot of banks tried to roll out solutions pretty quickly, but people I know who have tried to process their applications through larger banks had a hard time getting any money because the money was already gone by the time the banks got their acts together. And when we applied, the bank had a worksheet to fill out with a bunch of questions that was pretty complicated. We haven’t tried to apply for any of the EIDL loans ourselves, and I don’t know anyone who has made it through that application process.”
Despite current relief concerns, Personas is continuing to expand its COVID-19 resources to assist the startup community. Lee said they’re constantly adding new SaaS discounts to their online tool, and are in the process of updating and expanding their mini-site.
“We’re trying to circulate this pretty widely around the startup community,” Lee said. “We’re planning to have another piece soon with resources for startup employees and people who have been laid off, since that’s unfortunately happening pretty frequently among startups.”
Nytch
Woodland, California
Nytch is a mobile service that is focused on connecting small businesses with local customers. The startup’s app lets local businesses leverage their knowledge, experience, and offline inventory to provide customers with more convenient and well-rounded retail services. With a strong focus on building up interactions between local businesses and communities, Nytch is hoping to serve as a counterweight to the growing reliance on e-commerce platforms and industry behemoths.
As the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged small businesses and startups across the country, Grant Lea—a Nytch co-funder—decided to open up the firm’s services to help support struggling companies. Nytch was recently featured in a CNN article highlighting companies that are offering resources to help small businesses stay afloat amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.
Lea said Nytch is offering its services for free “so these communities can build up and support their local businesses in a way to keep them surviving the coronavirus, and also surviving and thriving in whatever comes after it.”
Given the startup’s unique focus on improving consumers’ engagement with their local businesses, Lea said he hopes that access to their platform’s services will encourage businesses to continue growing, hiring, and accepting delivery of their inventories despite the economic concerns brought on by the pandemic.
“I’ve had the opportunity to talk to these small businesses daily about what’s happening, and every single one of them is terrified about what the future holds,” Lea said. “They know their communities want to support them, but it’s just hard to figure out how to do that at scale. We can’t be in every market, but the people interested in us want to support the markets that they’re in.”
The economic fallout from the virus has put renewed stress on small businesses across the country, exacerbating many of the underlying trends that have led to a surge in online shopping and e-commerce platforms. Lea said that Nytch is committed to supporting small businesses through the current crisis, and ensuring that customers continue to patronize and support their local businesses—both during and after the pandemic.
“Our job is to continue to build up these tools and resources, because America and the rest of the world will get back to regular order,” Lea said. “But that doesn’t change any of the things that we do. We still have to provide services that make sense for small- and medium-sized businesses and those we work with that have unorthodox inventories, like farmers markets. When things get back to normal, we don’t want them to lag too far behind.”
Lea added that the renewed focus on supporting small businesses through the crisis underscores the importance of Main Street to local communities.
“People need to understand the constraints community businesses face, and what will happen if they lose their local businesses,” Lea said. “They lose that tax base, those jobs, that culture. Public perception needs to change when it comes to supporting small businesses.”
