Are You Putting Your Google Winnings in the Bank?

Had an interesting discussion last week with the CEO of a startup that was getting a lot of traffic from Google. His board had been encouraging him to invest in scaling up the business faster. His strategy had been to pursue slower growth so that he always had enough cash in the bank in case of emergencies. Then Panda hit. His healthy fear of Google had enabled him to keep the lights on when others were going out of business.

I have worked with a number of clients who have received an enormous amount of traffic from Google. While they work hard for it, when you rely on someone else’s ecosystem to power your business, you never know when the ground will fall out from beneath you.

When the Google traffic seems too good to be true, that’s the time to be taking as much of your winnings off the table, putting it in the bank and/or investing it in strategies that will make you less dependent on the Great and Powerful GOOG.

You never know when some algorithm is going to foreclose on you and drive you towards bankruptcy.

For further prognostication, you might consider perusing Are You Radiohead?