Despite the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, StartupSac continues to connect and engage with the Sacramento startup community and provide value to our local startups. Because of the Stay-at-Home mandates, we have transitioned our in-person events to online virtual events.

In April we held a StartupSac Virtual Office Hours to help explain the COVID-19 emergency relief resources as they relate to startups and the self-employed. We assembled a panel of experts from the SBA, the SBDC, SAFE Credit Union, and Ernst & Young to give short presentations on relief resources from the SBA (EIDL), the CARES Act (Paycheck Protection Program), and the State of California. We had 50 people in that session and received extremely positive feedback about how helpful this session was. We recorded that session and the video is available here.

We also transitioned our monthly StartupSac Happy Hour to a virtual event, partnering in April with the Carlsen Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Sac State and featuring Entrepreneur-in-Residence and founder of Alydia Health, Jessie Becker Alexander. You can watch a recording of that online event here.

On May 6, we held another online StartupSac Office Hours with Sabya Das, partner at Moneta Ventures, who discussed how founders can pivot and adjust in a COVID-19 Economy, and how many venture firms and investors are looking at the world right now. Watch the recording of Sayba’s presentation and the Q&A session.

On May 26, our online StartupSac Happy Hour will feature Greg Connolly, founder and CEO of Trifecta. Greg will give a talk about how inbound digital marketing can keep your business growing during a crisis.

In addition to these online meetups, we continue to provide startups with information on educational opportunities, COVID-19 relief programs,  and startup-focused events provided by other organizations in our region through the weekly Startup Digest email and through daily posts and interactions on our private StartupSac Community Facebook group. We also broadcast this information on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Now more than ever, startups and entrepreneurs need our help. In addition to the necessary government financial support, entrepreneurs and startups desperately need support from ecosystem builders, those like StartupSac who facilitate and catalyze the flow of information and resources.