Despite pandemic, OGScapital was rated the TOP 4 Small Business Consulting Firm in 2020 by Clutch Reveals Alex Silensky

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Alex Silensky: Hello everyone! COVID-19 has created challenges for all of our OGS family members. With lockdown presenting difficulties for many individuals and businesses, we are pleased to report that we managed to pivot quickly. 

To maximize the benefits of our transition to remote work, we embraced the importance of remaining agile. Unfortunately, many of us do not have the benefit of choosing where and how we work. 

Stimulating work environments are key to the success of any venture. We must be open to working under different circumstances to break away from the monotony of working from home. 

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined OGScapital

Alex Silensky: I founded OGScapital 14 years ago with a small team of consultants.

Our team wanted to help new and small/medium companies scale. We had 10+ years of experience working in leading consulting companies and investment banks. 

We have served companies from the TOP1000 Fortune List. So now, we are sharing our best strategies with startups and small/medium businesses. Our core product is a business plan for fundraising and operational growth.

How does OGScapital innovate? 

Alex Silensky: We create high-quality business plans of a standard not yet seen in our industry. 

When we first began operations, we realized that only one in ten companies had an operational resource that outlined key milestone/market data. As we refined our services, we noticed that many of our clients were implementing the same innovative strategies used in our first 3 years of collaboration. We decided to consolidate the learnings into a best practice manual that we still use today.

The results that we got were productive, to say the least.

Here were some of our core strategies:

• Attracting the best talents on the market with relevant experience and expertise
• Applying digital technologies
• Using innovative tools for project management
• Access to the recent industry statistics
• Advances sales/marketing techniques

 Our bread and butter is built on these tactics, so we know they work.

How has the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Alex Silensky: A lot of things have changed. Here are some of the changes we have implemented.

We have refocused our efforts on relevant startups thriving in the current environment, for example, food delivery, eCommerce, online entertainment, health supplementation, etc. We recently published a report on the impact of COVID-19 on Startups in 2020. You can get that information here.

• Our team members immediately started to work more from home. As soon as this happened, we defined clear expectations regarding communication and working hours.
• OGScapital started to collaborate with the market stakeholders looking for partnerships with a passion for innovative business development.

Despite all COVID challenges, our efforts were recognized by Clutch. We were rated as one of the TOP4 Small Business Consulting Firms in 2020.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Alex Silensky: The single biggest challenge that any business faces in a crisis is continuity. Our business continuity plan helped us a lot. I strongly recommend having this resource available to an organization during huge economic shifts like COVID-19. To survive this kind of economic shift, a company must have strong processes in place to mitigate the redundant business activity. When you need to pivot, it needs to happen fast.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety, where do you see yourself and OGScapital in the future?

Alex Silensky: Time with the family and exercise were two game-changers for me. Both of them help me to manage my stress efficiently. In the future, we are planning to create an ecosystem with different service providers/vendors who will satisfy the growing needs of our startup and SME clients.

In addition, OGScapital is planning to provide more support to startups with innovative ideas.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Alex Silensky: We have a lot of competitors as the market is not concentrated. Our fast adaptation to current economic circumstances helped us refine our services to the degree that the crisis has only marginally affected us. 

The strong relationships that we built with our customers have certainly been the foundation of this success.

Any final thoughts?

Alex Silensky: At OGScapital, we help business owners understand all of the factors at play during economic shifts, such as the COVID-19 crisis. Small businesses around the world desperately need to put a plan in place so that they do not fall victim to the many challenges headed our way. 

Your website?

https://www.ogscapital.com