The American economy may be in a dark period right now, but some in Silicon Valley are optimistic it could spawn a generation of startups whose founders are finally getting the nudge they needed to make the leap, Axios reports.
It might sound counterintuitive to launch new businesses in the middle of an economic crash, but it’s worked during past downturns. After the dotcom bust in the early 2000s, a new wave of small companies emerged to build “Web 2.0,” and many of today’s industry leaders got started during the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
Some entrepreneurs are showing that they want to forge ahead both with new ideas and with companies they’ve already been working on. Y Combinator, the famed startup accelerator program, is seeing 15% to 20% more applicants for its summer program, its admissions chief tells Axios.
Meanwhile, initiatives like Cleo Capital’s Chrysalis and Chapter One’s Future Founders list are hoping to help newly unemployed tech workers explore starting new companies. However, it’s too early to know what these new companies will look like, how they will function and what they will build. Read the full story.
