It might seem counterintuitive to start a new business when the economy is in the dumps. But a recession can actually be the ideal time for launching a company. In fact, many well-known and successful organizations were born during an economic slump.
The following major corporations made it big during recessions:
Burger King Corp., with its flame-broiled burgers, is another recession startup. The company began in 1954 when James McLamore and David Edgerton opened a Burger King restaurant in Miami, Fla. During another recession in 1957, the company introduced its successful signature burger — the Whopper. Today, the company operates more than 11,100 locations in 65 countries.
The Jim Henson Company was created by famed puppeteer Jim Henson in 1958. Henson’s business was responsible for some of the best-known puppet characters of all time including Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog and Elmo. Today, the privately held company is managed by Henson’s children and continues to thrive by creating popular kids-friendly shows and movies.
FedEx Corp. began operations on April 17, 1973 as Federal Express, a nod to the Federal Reserve, with whom founder Frederick W. Smith had hoped to get a contract. He didn’t, but the company that delivered 186 packages to 25 cities on its first night of operations now manages more than 7.5 million shipments everyday worldwide.
Microsoft Corp. wasn’t always the jaw-dropping enterprise it is today. In 1975, when it was created by Harvard University dropout Bill Gates, Microsoft was just a little company in Albuquerque, N.M. It dealt in rudimentary computing languages and began its climb to business stardom with the success of MS-DOS, which was sold and marketed to IBM Corp. and then-IBM clones. Today, the company is estimated to earn more than $60 billion in revenue per year and is branching into new areas including VoIP and CRM.
CNN might be a news giant now, but in recession-plagued 1980, it was a little-known station called The Cable Network News. It revolutionized how people received information when it premiered as the first 24-hour all-news channel. Today, 1.5 billion people across the globe watch CNN.
Photo by Various.
cassy on November 19th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Great article! Its so inspiring to know that despite of the economic slump, this corporation have been successful and still operating.
Jaclyn Wells on November 19th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I can see why starting a business in the middle of a recession would be a great time to do so…just think, you could probably start-up for a lot less then what you normally would including rent of a building and supples since companies would be so hard up to fill these voids and are probably offering them at discount rates, and then once the economy break’s…you would have your business completed started up with less money invested and start raking in the higher profits once people started spending money again.
SEO Software on November 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Cool article…lends a bit of optimism to all the current entrepreneurs of the world. Who wouldn’t want to be the next Bill Gates?!