Barrons: Kleiner’s John Doerr: What Startups Should Do Now

Here’s Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr’s list of what start-ups need to do to survive the downturn. He’s speaking this afternoon at the Web 2.0 Summit at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco:

Act now, act with speed.
Protect vital core of the business.
Make sure you have 18 months of cash on conservative revenue forecast.
Defer facilities expansion.
Re-evaluate R&D spending.
Re-negotiate any and all contracts, including leases.
Everybody in the company ought to be selling. (The products, not the stock.)
Give equity bonuses instead of cash to employees.
Secure cash - in Treasuries, government based securities, not money funds; we could lose a major bank.
For revenue plans: figure out the leading indicators that will tell you about repeat opportunities.
Over-communicate with everyone. Make sure everyone knows where things stand. And do not cut hope.