Re:Ask YC: How will the US economy affect the probability of...
by iamelgringo on Saturday November 10, 2007 @07:26AM
(#78123)
I'm not too worried. Weak dollar, rising oil prices and a credit crunch for mortgages isn't really going to affect the tech industry much. We're not a petroleum, credit or real estate based industry.
Rising oil prices mean that commodities that are distributed via oil based transport will be more expensive. Shipping widgets via plane train or truck just got more expensive. Our products are distributed electronically, so relatively speaking our products are going to be cheaper, and might be considered a better value.
Credit crunch and defaulting mortgages means that the banking and finance industries are going to be taking a bath for a bit. It's going to be harder for you to get a mortgage. I don't see that affecting the software biz much.
A weak dollar means that internationalization efforts will pay off. There are going to be more people in Europe, Canada and Asia that will be interested in buying American goods because American goods will be cheaper. It's time to make friends who know other languages to translate your site, and be sure that your programming language of choice has good Unicode support. Outsourcing just got more expensive, however because of the exchange rate differences.
Finally, that bottle of French champagne that you were going to drink at your liquidity party just got more expensive. That's a bummer. :)
Rising oil prices mean that commodities that are distributed via oil based transport will be more expensive. Shipping widgets via plane train or truck just got more expensive. Our products are distributed electronically, so relatively speaking our products are going to be cheaper, and might be considered a better value.
Credit crunch and defaulting mortgages means that the banking and finance industries are going to be taking a bath for a bit. It's going to be harder for you to get a mortgage. I don't see that affecting the software biz much.
A weak dollar means that internationalization efforts will pay off. There are going to be more people in Europe, Canada and Asia that will be interested in buying American goods because American goods will be cheaper. It's time to make friends who know other languages to translate your site, and be sure that your programming language of choice has good Unicode support. Outsourcing just got more expensive, however because of the exchange rate differences.
Finally, that bottle of French champagne that you were going to drink at your liquidity party just got more expensive. That's a bummer. :)