Where can startups look for support during the COVID-19 crisis? BONUS: Free Courses and Tools
The rapidly spreading coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic affects every sphere of our lives. Undoubtedly, the most important and most severe effect it has on the health and life of people. However, in the long term, it is the global economy that will be particularly hard hit by this crisis.
It is a challenging time to run a business. Regardless of the size of a company, the owners must show great creativity to fight for their future. As we work mainly with startups, we know that this is a particularly unstable period for them. Launching a new product on the market is never easy, and in the face of a global epidemic, it may seem to be almost impossible. However, it’s still worth trying.
That’s why we share a crowdsourced list of initiatives that have been developed to help startups and companies affected by the restrictions introduced following the COVID-19 epidemic. Certainly, for many more months, the situation will be far from perfect, but we hope that thanks to these opportunities, you will be able to deal with it.
We divided the list into two main parts – global initiatives and those aimed at European companies.
Cooperation is the key to survive the crisis.
Worldwide
- BOOST WITH FACEBOOK – Facebook is offering $100M in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 eligible small businesses in over 30 countries where we operate.
- Corona Help – A list of free resources given by companies amid coronavirus.
- Coronavirus (COVID-19) checklist – An open-source checklist to help companies and individuals cope with COVID-19.
DHL COVID-19 Supply Chain Resource Center – Their Coronavirus Supply Chain Resource center features daily updates and special reports, providing you with early warning intelligence on the Coronavirus epidemic as well as recommendations for business contingency planning based upon best-in-class supply chain risk management methodology. - Coronavirus Innovation Map – Global map of innovative solutions created in response to COVID-19.
- Coronavirus Tech Handbook – Open Source Ventilators, Oxygen Concentrators & more.
- COVID-19 startup benefit package – From founders for founders – Apply to have your product/service listed for special conditions to help other struggling startups.
- CovTech Ventures – The CovTech accelerator program is a cluster and project sponsored by Techventures, designed to fight pandemic disease threats through collaboration between the ventures, mentors and experts.
- Digital Hackathon 3.-5. April – This is a call for action to participate and join forces to create innovative solutions for the local community. Join designers, developers, professionals and entrepreneurs in an effort focused on elevating ideas and creating space for innovators to come together in a time of global crisis.
- Ecosystem Survival Team – Blogspot and Call for people to join a Slack community to fight back together!
- ESA Space Solutions is looking for solutions to support the European community, especially in Italy, in reacting to the coronavirus outbreak in the sectors of Healthcare and Education. If you develop technology in the health and education sector, apply to the program! Applications will only be open for a short period from 31 March 31st to 20 April 20th. More information and application form available here.
- Global impact measurement on ventures by Techventures Network – Blog post with daily updates: results from the impact measurement with insights and tips.
- How to operate your startup under lockdown – Blogspot by Andreas Klinger.
- Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies – Facebook Group to evaluate, design, validate, and source the fabrication of open-source emergency medical supplies around the world, given a variety of local supply conditions.
- Resource for founders seeking funding during the Corona-crisis – If you look for funding, you can find out here which investors still accept pitches by mail/zoom.
- Sam Altman Funding for COVID-19 projects – Famous investor and entrepreneur Sam Altman is calling out for entrepreneurs trying to help solve the COVID-19 crises.
- Startup Survival Academy – Startup Survival in Times of Crisis is a free mini-course over three modules on how you can develop a strategy for survival.
- Support measures for startups affected by coronavirus: the ultimate resource – Blog post by Sifted providing many resources sorted by country.
- Techstars Startup Weekend Signup Form – Sign up form for a remote special edition of Techstars’ Startup Weekend on COVID-19.
Many initiatives have been created around the world to help startups survive the crisis.
Europe
BELGIUM
- Agoria FAQ – The site answers frequently asked questions about the coronavirus and government measures in Belgium.
CYPRUS
DENMARK
- Free sparring by Copenhagen Business Hub experts for companies experiencing financial difficulties.
- Overview of all initiatives to support companies in these COVID-19 times, including a hotline to call.
- Overview of help from the government to support startups, small companies and freelancers.
- A survey from Danks Bank & The Hub – the goal is to understand the situation startups are in.
FINLAND
ESTONIA
- Corona Bot – Coronabot gives answers on the topics related to the virus based on data from official national and international institutions.
- HackTheCrisis – Community to fight against the COVID-19 crisis by Accelerate Estonia
GERMANY
Bavaria
Baden-Württemberg
Berlin
Cologne
Frankfurt and Rhine/Main
- Dealing with Corona – Article with best practices, legal information, information on financial support and much more.
North Rhine-Westphalia
Saxony
GREECE
IRELAND
ITALY
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
LUXEMBOURG
MALTA
- Economic Support Malta – Malta Enterprise supports local and foreign businesses in Malta in dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on businesses.
NETHERLANDS
- gov – Government measures to help businesses.
- Cash is king – Free webinar in Dutch by Dutch financial keynote speaker Richard Take, hosted by Alex van Groningen.
- Dutch Startups Association – letter to House of Representatives – The Board sent a letter to the House of Representatives, pointing out startups are at risk of being left out of the new emergency measure for job retention.
- Dutch Tech ecosystem & COVID-19 – This survey and its analysis aim to identify the impact of COVID-19 on the Dutch startup ecosystem. Over 445 startup participants.
- RVO – Overview of all the measurements by the Dutch government, also for entrepreneurs.
- Techleap COVID-19 Startup Guide – On this page, you will find all the useful resources and contacts for your startup and your employees in the Netherlands while facing the main challenges identified in a survey done by Techleap.nl organization. This page will be continually updated by its team. You can also share relevant links with them: [email protected].
NORDICS & BALTICS
NORWAY
PORTUGAL
- #tech4Covid19 – A movement of technological community, there are several projects which tackle COVID-19 related problems.
- Fight COVID-19 Open Challenge – Launched by TAIKAI, an open innovation social network in which volunteers, designers, students, researchers, computer scientists, health workers, startups, software developers, business developers and others will cooperate and produce creative solutions which can help fight against the current epidemic of COVID-19.
- LinkedIn Post introducing tech4covid19.
- Portuguese Entrepreneurship Ecosystem & COVID-19 – This analysis aims to identify the impact of COVID-19 on the Portuguese Entrepreneurship ecosystem.
SWEDEN
SWITZERLAND
UK
UKRAINE
Follow latest news to stay up-to-date with information about the crisis.
BONUS: tools and courses
SaaS
✓ 1Password free Business Plan
✓ Adzooma fully free until June 1, 2020
✓ Calendly Premium features for free
✓ Cloudflare for Teams for small businesses
✓ Dropbox Business – Free 3 Month Subscription
✓ Free access to Atlassian cloud projects including Jira and Confluence
✓ Freshworks unrestricted access
✓ Hangouts Meet, free for up to 250 users per call and 100,000 viewers for livestream
✓ Hootsuite free access to Professional tier
✓ Microsoft Teams – Free 6 month subscription
✓ Nimbus LTD on SaasMantra free access
✓ Pandadoc free tier (eSign plan) gives unlimited everything
✓ PitchGround gives away software to small companies to help them survive the COVID-19 crisis
✓ Workforce management tool Bundy free for up to 10 team members
✓ Wrike Professional plan free for new users for 6 months
✓ ZOHO’s Remotely free until July 1, 2020
✓ ZOOM Unlimited meeting times and breakout rooms
Courses
✓ Conversion Optimization course
✓ Craig Campbell’s SEO course free (regular price is $800)
✓ CXL Growth Marketing Minidegree
✓ Free Access to Premium Course Blogging for business by Ahrefs (playlist on YouTube)
✓ Free courses on Coursera
✓ Free courses on SEMRush
✓ Free courses on Udemy
✓ Link Research Tools SEO Certification
✓ MOZ SEO courses are available for free with the code ‘wegotthis’:
✓ Oberlo Dropshipping 101 course for free – the code ‘LEARNFROMHOME’
✓ Schema Markup Boot Camp
✓ Siege Media Content Marketing course
✓ Smart Passive Income Media (SPI Media) courses
✓ Spocket SEO Courses
✓ Traffic Research Bunker Edition
✓ Yoast SEO training free
Make the most of the time in isolation by learning things online.
We hope that all these sources of information, articles, surveys and initiatives will prove to be helpful to your business. If you are aware of other activities that could help startups and small businesses cope with this crisis, let us know. We would be happy to add them to the list. And remember that in periods like this, the best way to survive is to cooperate. We keep our fingers crossed for you!
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