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Silicon Valley is a unique part of the world–full of optimism, ambition, ideas and capital. While the seemingly eternal optimism has been quietly deflating for many months as the stock market declined, Silicon Valley was truly spooked by the now public advice of Trulia investors Sequoia Capital, Ron Conway and others.

Recaps of the doomsday scenario and subsequent advice they gave us at the Sequoia all hands event have been written and rewritten, and “that presentation” has seen more email rounds than a featured video on YouTube. It has been the talk of the start-up community and has frankly brought the Bay Area back to earth with a sudden jolt.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot more time with our investors, senior management and the rest of the team at Trulia as we get a sense of what the financial crisis means for us and what we are going to do about it. I’m sure every business around the globe is doing just this and many companies have been forced to make tough decisions to prolong their survival.

Am I concerned about America’s economic strength and the global financial markets? Absolutely.  Am I concerned about Trulia’s direction?  Absolutely not; what we do today is more relevant than ever.  Fewer people are buying homes than in 2005, but the wealth of information and invaluable advice from the community makes what we do more useful than ever before.  If one thing is for certain, people need housing today, just as much as they did last month and last year and they’ll need it just as much in one year and ten years time.  Given today’s environment, it’s both Trulia’s challenge and opportunity to serve the consumer’s evolving needs.

As a start-up we are fortunate to have surrounded ourselves with smart minds and smart capital.  While we are well-financed, we have always run a tight ship.  We started out as a class project at Stanford and have not forgotten our frugal beginnings. So what does that mean for us in today’s environment?

We are:
- Limiting the use of external agencies and contractors where we can
- Re-focusing the team on our core products to fit today’s marketplace
- Over communicating internally and externally on how things are going
- Rewarding our teams and individuals with bonuses and credit when they exceed their goals
- Focused on profitability

We are not:
- Laying off staff
- Changing our core strategy
- Compromising our user or advertiser experience

We truly believe that this will be a long journey for Trulia.  We are fortunate to have patient and forward-thinking investors, who are joining us for the journey.  We all believe in Trulia’s mission and opportunity, today more than ever!

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