

Ask HN: What are you doing differently due to the "economic crisis"? - ConradHex

You can't read the news without seeing several articles detailing the economic crisis we are in. Phrases like "worst X since the Depression" are thrown around with alarming frequency.<p>Personally, I haven't been directly affected yet by the current economy. I still have a job, and the job market in my specialty and region still looks ok from where I'm standing. But I'm concerned about how things will look 6 months from now.<p>Here's what I've been doing:<p>* More networking. Emailing colleagues from old jobs, setting up lunches, staying in touch.<p>* Keeping resume up-to-date.<p>* Fixing a side-project website that I did a while back, which has fallen into disrepair. (I think it's a decent demonstration of my abilities, when it's working, anyway.)<p>* Learning a new programming language/dev environment<p>* Trying to cut down on how much I read the news. Or at least articles about the economy. It seems like it's stopped being helpful, and for me I'm just starting to feel needless panic at this point.<p>How has the economy affected you, and what are you doing about it?
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noodle
i took a relocation package that i would have probably not taken otherwise.

i'm also working on developing my resume/portfolio and finding some smaller
freelance type jobs on the side to help pad my emergency fund.

edit: i suppose i should include some 'good' things i've done --

i made some very smart investment choices and haven't lost much in the stock
market.

6 months ago i downsized everything, moved back in with my parents on a
temporary basis, and started saving up a lot more money to try and brace for
impact.

consequently, i'm about to buy a very nice place in a very cool area for a
very low price.

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owkaye
We developed a business specifically to take advantage of the fact that we're
in a depression. It's not that hard to do when you think about it for a while,
and re-adjust your 'thinking cap'. Unfortunately it seems that many people
don't have this ability. Maybe they are so used to thinking about how to make
money in a growing economy that it is totally foreign to them to think about
how to do it in a depression. Our model may not last for more than a few years
but it has the potential to generate so much income in those few short years
that it's crazy not to do it.

Our concept uses the internet as a marketing tool but it is in no way an
exclusive internet business model, nor it is yet another lame non-business
hobby like most of the 'social networking' site a lot of naive and
inexperienced kids are putting online these days.

I'm 52 years old and have decades of experience with a variety of different
startups, internet and non-internet, and all of them my own concepts and
ideas. My partners in this new venture are equally experienced in the 'real
world' as well as in the virtual world. This kind of experience is invaluable,
and it is also something that appears to be sorely lacking in the internet
startup world today, at least in terms of the ridiculous new startups I hear
about in this forum.

Our new business solves a real world problem, it's not out there trying to
sponge off facebook or twitter or any of the other throw-away efforts of the
"Web 2.0 generation" by re-factoring info others provide. I cannot imagine the
whining we're going to hear from all the 'me too' kids out there who have no
better ideas than to latch onto the shirttails of companies that have no
revenue model and are therefore destined for oblivion in the next few years!

If you're thinking of a startup here's my advice: Instead of trying to find
and solve problems in people's virtual lives, just pay attention to the
problems they are having in the REAL WORLD -- in their actual day-to-day lives
aside from the internet -- and you may come up with a genuine business model
that will make you a millionaire or better.

And if you want to keep your current job or get a better one, start now by re-
dedicating yourself to performing faster, smarter and better on the job you
already have. Then maybe your current employer will have a reason to keep you
around after he lays off everyone else. And your next employer will see
something unique and valuable in you compared with all the clowns who make
almost no effort to improve their on-the-job performance, and instead do as
little as possible for the money their employers are willing to pay them.

Set yourself apart from everyone else, not only on the job but in your off-
work time as well. Show yourself and the rest of the world that you're willing
to try harder, improve more, and become truly valuable to this world. Don't be
a leech or a sponge because they suck the lives out of others. Instead become
energizing, overflowing and powerful.

Do everything the best you possibly can, or don't do it at all, that's the
bottom line.

