How to manage your Internet company in the downturn? Ask Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
If you’re an entrepreneur, there’s a good chance you’re hurting from the economic downturn.
More crucial than ever is the ability for companies to scrape in enough revenue — through aggressive and innovative sales and operations efforts — to keep you going through the lean times.
We’ve invited Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, a CEO-in-residence at Accel Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, to take questions about how to handle operations during the downturn. Please enter your questions in the comments below (your name preferred, but if you’re shy, anonymous works ok too). Please respond by Tuesday, at which time Sukhinder will review the top ten questions and respond by the end of the week. Check back here for a post where she responds.
Sukhinder is a pro. Before joining Accel this month, she was at Google for almost six years. She built the company’s presence in Latin America and Asia-Pacific from less than 17 people in 2005, to where it now serves 103 different countries throughout the area with 18 offices and 8 R&D centers. She led the company’s commercial operations in that region. Prior to that, she was general manager of Google Local & Maps, which she helped to launch.
Significantly, though, she’s been through a big downturn before. In 1999, she co-founded an Accel-backed company, Yodlee, an online financial company. From 1999 to 2003, including when the valley struggled through a nuclear winter for three years, she managed the company’s sales and business development efforts, securing deals with companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Bank of America and Citbank. Before that, she worked at in business development with Amazon.com and OpenTV. She’s now a “CEO-in-Residence” at Accel, a firm that has backed and nurtured companies from Facebook to Glam, Macromedia and MetroPCS. As such, she is helping Accel to evaluate a range of new investments, and will potentially run one of Accel’s portfolio companies.
We’re looking forward to seeing your questions for Sukhinder. And better yet, Sukhinder’s answers!
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
