Big companies born in hard times

Economic downturns have been known to bring out the upstarts, renegades and innovators. Here are a few little companies that could …and ultimately did!

General Electric

In 1876 a European mortgage crisis resulted in an international banking fiasco. Meanwhile, an unassuming but relatively intelligent inventor named Thomas Edison opened a small laboratory in the relative calm of New Jersey. It grew into a mega-company with 173 billion dollars in revenue and more than 50,000 patents.
 

Revlon

During the Great Depression in 1932, the Revson brothers along with their friend Charles Lachman, an accomplished chemist, started a small beauty business called Revlon. Together they developed a new manufacturing process for nail polish. Charles Lachman also contributed the “l” to the company’s name.

Hewlett-Packard

In 1938, at the end of the Great Depression, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard gathered a whopping total of $538 dollars in working capital and began their adventure into business in a garage in Palo Alto, California. Hewlett-Packard went forth to become one of the world’s largest technology firms. It took a year for Bill and Dave to develop their first product. Their new audio oscillator was ultimately bought by Walt Disney.
 

MTV

The 1980’s saw excessive unemployment, an ongoing energy crisis and dangerously high interest rates. Music Televison was born and provided a much-needed distraction when it broadcast “Video killed the radio star” on one single cable station in New Jersey. Today’s MTV is a broadcast goliath with 150 channels worldwide.

Cisco

A group of scientific braniacs at Stanford University banned together to found Cisco Systems. The United States had long been suffering from the 1980’s recession with skyrocketing inflation and record unemployment. Cisco climbed aboard the economic new wave and rode the Reagan boom years as well as the rapidly expanding technology bubble to become one of the world’s largest technology corporations.

The moral of the story

Never underestimate what brilliant schemes will hatch in times of economic trouble. Keep your eyes open. Look for the new process, the new product, the new procedure. Anything is possible!

List compiled by Conde’ Nast Portfolio

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Bill Chionio, Founder of Business Owners International