Startup Strategies for a Funding Winter

We study history to find direction. Taiwan’s founders, commonly around thirty, did not personally experience the 2000 dot-com crash. Nasdaq peaked at 5,048.62 on March 10, 2000, then fell to 1,114.11 on October 9, 2002: two and a half years and a 78% decline. At least 90% of companies collapsed, but survivors carried the internet age, including 1% that became today’s giants and created immense value. Life before widespread internet is now hard to imagine. Google, founded in 1998, and Amazon, founded in 1994, survived. Amazon listed on Nasdaq in May 1997 and lost as much as 95% of its value in the crash, yet endured, transformed, and kept expanding its boundaries. Crises and opportunities recur. The 2008 subprime crisis brought global recession but major openings: Bitcoin’s white paper launched decentralized blockchain and cryptocurrency; Airbnb and Uber emerged in 2008 as people with little cash sought extra income from idle assets, fueling the sharing economy; reduced capital expenditure encouraged cloud adoption and the rise of SaaS. The 2020 pandemic changed trade, supply chains, work, education, and social interaction, accelerating remote work, education, healthcare, and consumption. Russia’s 2022 war against Ukraine brought geopolitical tensions, inflation, and war’s shadow. US trade barriers and tariffs in 2025 abruptly shifted decades of globalization toward deglobalization. Turbulence brings crises and new opportunities. Taiwan’s founders must sense, participate in, and help drive this changing world order. Startups must seriously confront fundraising difficulties. Opportunity may follow risk, but first survive the darkest period. Rising uncertainty over the next one or two years, perhaps longer, will make capital harder to raise; promised investments may change. Falling public-market stocks compound the difficulty. Reconsider valuations and fundraising strategies. I have offered three principles: 1. Customer money is better than shareholder money. Keep improving products and services so customers still pay when budgets tighten, rather than cut you first. 2. Prepare before seeking investors. Help yourself before others can help; fundraising cannot solve everything. Slim the organization, focus on the core, and set aside unnecessary projects and grand-platform dreams. Face the uncertain environment honestly. 3. Investment is not simply winter food storage. Offer a new winning plan investors can believe in. They must trust you to use their remaining money for the greatest returns. Investors are also concentrating portfolios on a few outstanding companies, often abandoning those below the top tier. They need the best to survive until they can capture the market and offset other losses. Do not fixate on valuation. PayPal raised capital in March 2000 just before the crash. Tencent raised US$2.2 million in April 2000 for 40%, a valuation of only US$5.5 million. Both could then survive the winter. Without sufficient funding before the party ends, a company may never reach its great ambitions. Finally, a hibernating bear can lower its heart rate from fifty-five to fifteen beats per minute. Identify essential projects and people, cut boldly, and keep only the core third or less. Until the last moment, do not stop securing provisions—even swallowing unpalatable investment terms—to survive the winter.