That is not so bad. My country had an unemployment rate of 40%+ before the recession (when it includes people not employed but not looking for a job). If unemployed illegal aliens from other countries in my country are included it will be significantly higher.
The USA may have temporary problems - like a kid who fell of his bike. But you guys will get back up on that bike fairly quickly (barring politicians doing stupid stuff). It may be a problem, but it is a temporary problem.
Where do I stand? I was laid off last week, so I decided to start my own software company (anyone need good web development done?). I don't have any paying clients yet, so I guess I'm employed, but making $0.
You're available for freelance work and there isn't a link to a page where you talk about your experience, your capabilities, and your rates in your profile?
This is a huge, huge pet peeve of mine: if you are a freelancer, you must have a link to your portfolio/marketing page everywhere online. I strongly advocate for people to put their rates, as well as their experience, capabilities, languages, links to your GitHub repos, etc., online, but I won't hate you if you don't (I just won't hire you).
If you're not currently accepting assignments, say that on your marketing page. But to neglect the opportunity for people who you interact with to find out how to hire you and why is just insane. Insane. (Plus, your link to Artisan System 404s - or does the Comcast intercept, at least - for me.)
"Leftnode Software is a new, small, and socially progressive software company". Why would you even mention that you are socially progressive? I do my best to shelter my clients of my political views. I don't mind theirs, and I wouldn't want them to not pick me because we disagree politically.
On the other hand, there's usually a (small-ish, but relatively loyal) market for companies that promote and affirm the political and/or religious beliefs of their customers.
The trick there is to present yourself as "on their side" without taking too many concrete positions on issues, so as to avoid alienating sub-groups. e.g., companies that want to be "green" or "eco-friendly" should avoid saying anything about nuclear power.
In this case, if one is promoting a company as open source-oriented, it's best to avoid: 1) Partisan US politics: one side angers the socialists, the other upsets the libertarians. 2) Anything that might provoke the Free Software vs. Open Source feud, including proxy issues like GPL vs. BSD. 3) Negative remarks about Apple, lots of people in the open source crowd like their products even though they're a very non-open company.
On the other hand, making fun of Microsoft would be fairly safe as long as it's kept professional (gentle satire and such) and doesn't sink to slashdot levels.
Your package includes "Google Email - Gmail"; try to rephrase that so clients don't think you're charging them for a @gmail.com signup. Don't even mention google, just call it "your own me@mywebsite.com email".
It will be interesting to see how the climate impacts YC applications? Will increased unemployment alone lead to higher rates of applications? How will the demo skew? Young folks who can't get a first job? Early thirties folks who are hitting a wall with promotion freezes? Or does it go the other way with people less willing to start something if they have a job already?
The "birth-death" model does overestimate employment - just take the example of the fellow who posted at the top of this thread. Laid off yesterday, starts a new software venture today. 0 income. And probably won't have any income for a few months at least...
So yes, new businesses are probably being born at a rapid clip just because people don't have any other options for employment at this point, so why not start something? But the vast majority of those businesses being started now won't show any income for many months... and many of them will just go under (as is always the case).
U3 ('official rate') jumped from 7.2% to 9.6% since January.
Check out this infographic via Calculated Risk to see how bad it is in some states: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SrOono9ZxiI/AAAAAAAAGX...
Fourteen states and D.C. now have double digit unemployment rates.
Illinois, Indiana, and Georgia are all close.
Four states are at record unemployment rates: Rhode Island, Oregon, Nevada, and California. Several others - like Florida and Georgia - are close.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/09/unemployment-rates...