Counter Intuition

It's July 1935. Two of ten men and women are jobless. Breadlines and shanty-towns are common. Businesses have cut capital spending, deeper even than the year before.

In Massachusetts, two teenage brothers borrow $547 from their parents to open an ice cream shop they name "Friendly." They offer double-dip cones of store-made ice cream for a nickel―half the price charged by drug-store soda fountains―and stay open 'til midnight.

You know the rest: 40 years later, the brothers―after adding an apostrophe S to the name―own 500 shops.

Furloughed friends of mine ask if it's time to polish the resume or "go 1099." 

I answer, though it's counter-intuitive, "There's no time like the present to hang up your shingle."

It isn't easy to run a business, much less earn enough to support yourself―especially during a recession.

I know from experience.

But examples of businesses begun in recessions are bountiful: GE, GM, Marriott, Disney, HP, Trader Joe’s, FedEx, IBM, Microsoft, Instagram, Uber, Pinterest and Square, to name just a few.

The secret to success? 

It isn't capital or a "big idea.

It's hunger.

Recessions are distinct not only because they cause unemployment, but spawn survivalists, "spunky" entrepreneurs who launch businesses with low start-up costs and ready customers―like the ones hankering for a late-evening ice cream in 1935 Massachusetts.

But whatever you do, don't ask me for sound business advice.

I'm like the retailer who buys $3 shirts and sells them for $2. 

"How do you get away with that?" my competitor asks. 

“I make it up in volume.”