Successful Companies Started in Recessions

Just flipped through a quick slide-show on BusinessWeek titled "Recession Lessons" about companies that were founded during recessions and that have hence been quite successful.  Here's the list:

  • GE - 1876 (1873 - 96 recesssion) - leveraged US financial system to grow
  • Johnson & Johnson - 1887 (1873 - 96 recession) - same
  • Allstate - 1931 (Great Depression) - pulled together smart team from collapsed banks, took advantage of financial upheaval
  • Morgan Stanley - 1935 (Great Depression) - same
  • Krispy Kreme - 1937 (Great Depression) - cheap comfort food when people needed both
  • Hewlett-Packard - 1939 - cheap
  • Burger King - 1954 (decade's first recession) - rode the expansion of the Interstate Highway System
  • Hyatt - 1957 (decade's second recession) - rode the wave of mass standardized travel
  • Trader Joes - 1958 - rode demand of discount dry-goods from "Russia scare"
  • IHOP - 1958 - piggy-backed on trend of eating cheap lunch and dinner out of your house
  • Southwest Airlines - 1971 (before 73-75 recession) - forced them to be frugal
  • FedEx - 1973 - kept away other competitors, rode wave of air travel
  • Microsoft - 1975 - able to get best talent and put together great team
  • CNN - 1980 (during 1980 - 82 recession) - Turner's passion made this possible
  • MTV - 1981 - rode the same unbundling that CNN did, started lean with no-name VJ's, helped them in the long-run

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