Recession Success Stories
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Succeeding in a Recession
Very few business owners are thankful for a recession. But for the following entrepreneurs, launching a business in tough times turned out to be a stroke of luck. Check out how these six business owners established successful companies despite economic troubles.
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Next: Wrigley -
Jason Spaceman
Wrigley, 1891
With just $32 to his name, a 29-year-old Chicago entrepreneur named William Wrigley Jr. starts a business to manufacture soap. When it sells poorly, he tries baking powder. As a gimmick, he includes free chewing gum in every package. Customers seem more taken with the gum than with the goods it is meant to promote, so Wrigley drops the other products and starts developing new brands, including Juicy Fruit and Wrigley's Spearmint.
Next: UPS -
Zyph Bear
UPS, 1907
Amid a spike in interest rates and a sagging stock market, James Casey, 19, borrows $100 to start UPS, in Seattle, in 1907. His timing is great: The Klondike Gold Rush has flooded the town with thousands of transient new residents, many of whom send and receive notes by messenger. Most services are unreliable and seedy. Casey succeeds by insisting that his delivery boys show up on time, wear tidy (though not yet dark brown) uniforms, and treat customers with courtesy.
Next: Herman Miller -
Tilo Erwin
Herman Miller, 1923
In the same year that a currency crisis in Germany spurs a recession in the U.S., D.J. De Pree orchestrates a buyout of the furniture business he runs. The deal is funded by his wealthy father-in-law, Herman Miller. De Pree renames the company after his patron and begins experimenting with the sleek modern designs for which the company is now famous.
Next: Hewlett-Packard -
Brian Solis
Hewlett-Packard, 1938
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard launch a company that is in many ways impervious to the struggles of the economy: They bootstrap it, starting with just $538 in capital and working from that now-famous garage in Palo Alto, California. At launch, they have an order in hand for their first product, an audio oscillator, ensuring cash flow. And their first client is itself a growing business: Disney uses HP's products to test sound for Fantasia.
Next: Domino's Pizza -
Greg Nicholas
Domino's Pizza, 1960
Tom and James Monaghan borrow $500 to buy DomiNick's, a pizza shop near Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The business's proximity to the school helps to define its brand. "They succeeded mostly because they were able to make their deliveries very quickly," says Stephen Litwhiler, who was one of Domino's first delivery men and is now a franchisee in Burlington, Vermont. "No one else was focusing on that at the time."
Next: Wikipedia -
wikipedia.com
Wikipedia, 2001
The popular online encyclopedia, which has changed the way people collaborate online, is shaped in two ways by its experiences during the dot-com meltdown. First, amid a dearth of venture capital funding for new Web-based enterprises, Wikipedia is set up as a nonprofit (and initially viewed as a side project). And second, founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are able to expand quickly because they can borrow plenty of unused server capacity from other companies.
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