Is the economy improving? February Results Continue to Indicate Mixed Results

As you develop and execute your business growth strategies, the economy is probably the biggest unknown and has been since Q408. My sense from February results for the software/internet economy is that business is better than Q1 of last year, but not as good as Q4 of last year. The March results will be telling and the quarter will help predict the results for the year better, but my overarching sense is that the economy continues to improve at a relatively slow pace.

Some data points that I am hearing/seeing:

– Recruiting support firms, particularly executive search, that I have spoken to have very good backlogs.

– I have never experienced such full airplanes in my travels. I assume that this is coming from reduced capacity in the airlines, but at least some of it must be from economic growth and increased sales activity.

– Lead generation services and sales support and marketing firms seem to have mixed results, with many reporting really positive results and others working hard to find work (not sure what to make of this).

– The news from the Venture Capitalist also seems mixed when I normalize for the positive bias of most Venture Capital Advisors.

I suspect that the net of all of this will be reasonable economic growth for the quarter, but not the knock-out quarter that the software economy had in Q4.