The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Reinventing a firm to fit into the new world
Shannon Malkin Daniels has been waging two battles: one for her health, the other for her business.
The founder and CEO of the presentationstartup Encaptiv is fighting a stubborn respiratory illness that she and her doctor believe to be coronavirus, even though she has tested negative.
At the same time, Daniels is working to remake her company. Its software was designed to boost attendees’ engagement during in-person events. She’s now revamping for a new era of social distancing in which Zoom and other video platforms supersede large gatherings as the primary way for business professionals, educators and other users to reach large audiences.
Her challenge shows how startups across the country will have to re-engineer their operations to better fit a post-pandemic world. While Fortune 500 companies have the finances to quickly hire more workers and ramp up services to respond to demand shifts, nascent firms like Encaptiv will have to take a DIY approach to survive.
“We had just hit the point where we were going to market and starting to see traction and interest,” said Daniels, a Stamford resident. “All of that just shut down for us. We have to add this virtual component in right now, and how do we do that without funding?”
Encaptiv had made an auspicious start to the year, launching its software and participating in a Silicon Valley conference.
Today, with eight employees, the company is developing a much different strategy for long-term growth.
“We’ve had to drop some of the work we were working on before to try to quickly adapt and make our software viable for virtual meetings and events,” Daniels said. “Our first step was to build out an integration where you can integrate Zoom, Google Meet or GoTo Meeting or Webex or whatever you’re using right into Encaptiv.”