A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats
Despite everyone getting sick of hearing about COVID-19 and all the people that suddenly became part-time epidemiologists and economists, we felt it was important to share some of our thoughts. First and foremost, we hope you and your families have managed to stay healthy. Second, we have a huge amount of empathy for business owners, leaders and employees that have been so harshly impacted financially. And of course, our fund and our portfolio of amazing founders and the companies they lead will not be immune to the trickle down effects: one out of every three people on the planet is now in some form of quarantine.
But, here we switch to a message of pride, hope and optimism. We have never been so proud of our portfolio companies. These small teams with small budgets that are already challenged under normal conditions of growth, had to find it within themselves to reinvent their businesses on the fly while cutting costs. I can say that without exception, every single company in our portfolio planned, innovated and executed on a new plan that increased their odds of surviving this crisis and resuming growth as soon as possible. The level of compassion shown by these leaders will surely be remembered by their teams and customers, leading to further loyalty in the future.
It has been our assertion for several years that impact driven businesses will outperform in a downturn so now is our time to shine. For Active Impact's part, we put the "Active" in our name to the test and increased our support and involvement from weekly to daily. This is not the first economic downturn that I've been through. I was the one managing my own team and P&L last time so I can empathize with what they are going through and I hope I learned a few things that can be passed on. In addition, portfolios provide diversification and we have come to appreciate this even more after seeing some of our portfolio companies negatively impacted, some not impacted and one very positively impacted.
No doubt this will be a tough year for most but long term, we are bullish. We are 100% equipped to work from home at full capacity and we are still looking for great companies to invest in. One final silver lining to this horrible virus that relates to our mission - GHG emissions and pollution went way down last month! Satellite images from space have shown the air clearing over China and some rivers in Europe are running clear for the first time in decades. Now it's time to find ways to continue doing this without having to shut down our entire economy.