Entrepreneurship During Recessions: Booming Industries, Recession Babies, Reasons to Start and 999 Business Ideas

It’s not all gloom and doom despite the dire outlook emanating from a financial crisis triggered economic recession in the US.

Businessweek in a slideshow shows of 9 small business/ industries enjoying a boom which according to Stacy Perman of the Businessweek has been “giving new relevance to the old adage that one man's misfortune is another's opportunity.”

The list includes…

1. Companies specializing in credit counseling, debt and budget management, consolidation, or debt settlement.

2. Mortgage and Foreclosure Rescue Companies

3 Repair services

4. Alcohol

5. Safe

courtesy of Baumann Safe & Businessweek

6. Repossession

7. Thrift stores

8. Pawnshops

9. Private detectives

Don’t forget some of the known establishments were born during economic slumps, insidecrm.com enumerates 14 famous recession babies:

1. Hyatt Corp

2. Burger King Corp.

3. IHOP Corp.

4. The Jim Henson Company

5. LexisNexis

6. FedEx Corp.

7. Microsoft Corp.

8. CNN

9. MTV Networks

10. Trader Joe's

11. Wikipedia Foundation Inc.

12. Sports Illustrated

13. GE (General Electric Co.)

14. HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP)

Nonetheless, there are reasons why recessions could be a good time to start a business. Melissa Chang, founder of Pure Incubation, an Internet incubator based in the Boston area, elaborates in thestandard.com [HT: Mark Perry].

1) A recession forces founders to be frugal.

2) Recessions force entrepreneurs to take another close look at their ideas.

3) Recessions lead to committed startup teams.

4) Startups get a head start.

5) Recessions toughen up companies.

Finally, sixmonthmba.com offers 999 business ideas (Hamster Burial Kits & 998 Other Business Ideas) [HT: Seth Godin]

Alternatively, this reminds us that we can also opt to view today's predicament as windows of opportunities for progress or as ex-US President John F. Kennedy once said ``When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters-one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”