There are a lot of ways to analyze today’s economic challenges and the impact this is having on the tech market. But one of the more interesting perspectives on this I’ve seen comes from James Geshwiler of CommonAngels.

I won’t touch on all his points here, but James does see both opportunities and challenges for tech companies. He says its “a bad time if you need to build a huge company to achieve your goals” and “if you need a gazillion dollars to get there, especially across many rounds of funding.”

But he goes on to say that “its a great time if your revenue is counter-cyclical to start and you can grow your business even more when the economy recovers … competitive risk is now way down — you aren’t going to get a bunch of incumbent corporations entering your market nor will you get a bunch of well-funded startups on your heels.” He also says it’s “a particularly great time if you can build a company lean and mean with a modest amount of capital up front and make a good return for everyone on an average exit.”

No one is suggesting that we aren’t without challenges, but I like James’ philosophy — “financially cautious and entreprenurially optimistic” because I feel there’s enough caution out there, but not enough optimism. One way to get a sense of where we might find some of this optimism is an upcoming MassTLC meeting focusing on “hot tech opportunities for VC and angel funding”. Not surprisingly, James in on the panel.

You may want to check this out.

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