There Have Been Lots Of...

Metadata

• Author: @JonErlichman on Twitter
• Full Title: There Have Been Lots Of...
• Category: #tweets
• Read on: 2022-08-06
• URL: https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1555962887637712899

Highlights

• There have been lots of headlines about a recession.
  While recessions can be tough, new
  companies get started everyday.
  Here are 32 well known businesses that launched during recessions…🧵
  (View Tweet)
• P&G was founded during a financial crisis in 1837.
  It led to a very long depression.
  William Procter made candles.
  James Gamble made soap.
  Cincinatti’s meat-packing industry created excess fat, which they used in their products. 
  And by teaming up, they lowered their costs.
  (View Tweet)
• Goldman Sachs was founded during the recession in 1869.
  It was a one room office.
  Marcus Goldman had been a teacher. 
  A German immigrant, he worked as a shopkeeper before loaning money to local merchants…
  …and eventually building a massive commercial paper business.
  (View Tweet)
• Milton Hershey started his chocolate company in 1894.
  At the time, there was an economic depression after the Panic of 1893.
  (View Tweet)
• Kraft started during a recession in 1903.
  James Kraft rented a wagon with a horse named Paddy.
  He sold cheese to local grocers, who liked the convenience.
  But it was hard to keep fresh.
  He spent years working on a process for sterilizing cheese…
  …hence, processed cheese.
  (View Tweet)
• UPS started in the 1907 recession. 
  19-year-old Jim Casey borrowed
  $100 to launch the business.
  The office was in the basement of a Seattle saloon.
  It was first called the American Messenger Company.   
  Most deliveries were on foot, while bicycles were used for longer trips.
  (View Tweet)
• GM started during the 1908 recession.
  Founder Billy Durant had made a fortune making horse carriages.
  There were 253 U.S. automakers. 
  Durant wanted one company with lots of brands.
  Buick was the first (he worried it might be pronounced “Boo-ick.”)
  Oldsmobile was next.
  (View Tweet)
• IBM started during the 1911 recession.
  Financier Charles Flint merged several companies together…
  …makers of punch clocks, computing scales and tabulating machines. 
  It was named Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co, or CTR.
  It became “International Business Machines” in 1924.
  (View Tweet)
• Disney started in the 1923 recession.
  Walt began the year in Kansas City. 
  His animation business went bankrupt.
  He moved to California.
  He couldn’t find a job.
  So he returned to cartoons. 
  He launched a studio in his uncle’s garage.
  He got his first contract in October.
  (View Tweet)
• In 1927, J. Willard Marriott and his wife Alice opened a root beer stand.
  There was a mild recession and the Great Depression was coming. 
  But the business kept growing. 
  First, as a chain of restaurants…and then, the Marriott hotel empire.
  (View Tweet)
• Allstate started in 1931, during the Great Depression.
  It was part of Sears.
  Sears’ President was pitched by his neighbor, an insurance broker 
  The idea was to sell insurance through Sears’ catalog to save on broker commissions. 
  The name was based on a car tire Sears sold.
  (View Tweet)
• Revlon started in 1932, during the Great Depression.
  Joseph Revson was a nail polish salesman.
  He teamed up with brother Charles and chemist Charles Lachman.
  They combined Revson and Lachman for the name.
  Initially, they picked “Revlac,” but decided that didn’t sound right.
  (View Tweet)
• Vernon Rudolph started Krispy Kreme in the 1937 recession. 
  He acquired a secret donut recipe, but used up his money to get started.
  A grocer lent him ingredients.
  He made a delivery rack in the back of his car.
  And people started showing up for hot donuts even with no store.
  (View Tweet)
• Burger King started during the 1953-1954 recession.
  It was called “Insta-Burger King.”
  Its founders had a grill machine called the insta-broiler.
  Two franchisees later took control and renamed it Burger King.
  And they started using a gas grill called the “flame-broiler.”
  (View Tweet)
• Denny’s got started during the 1953 recession, initially as a donut shop. 
  It was originally called Danny’s, not Denny’s.
  (View Tweet)
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car launched during a recession in 1957.
  Jack Taylor was working at a Cadillac dealership in St. Louis and saw an opportunity in leasing.
  He was a fighter pilot in World War II.
  He flew from the U.S.S. Enterprise and picked that as the name for his company.
  (View Tweet)
• During a recession in 1957, Jim and Jane Henson started their business.
  They named it Muppets, Inc…
  …which is a combination of the words “marionette” and “puppet.”
  It was later renamed The Jim Henson Company.
  (View Tweet)
• An 8 month recession had just begun when Hyatt launched in 1957.
  Jay Pritzker bought the Hyatt House motel in LA.
  With brother Donald, they believed in quality motels near big airports.
  Within 2 years, they had similar locations in Seattle and SF.
  Hyatt now has 1,175 hotels.
  (View Tweet)
• IHOP started during the 1958 recession.
  Al Lapin had a coffee cart business, when he saw McDonald’s growth.
  He thought…instead of burgers, why not pancakes!
  Along with brother Jerry, they launched with $25,000.
  A Cordon Bleu Chef was hired to create unusual pancakes.
  (View Tweet)
• Microsoft gets an honorable mention.
  It was founded four days after the official end of the 1975 recession.
  This was their first world headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
  (View Tweet)
• Amgen launched during the 1980 recession in a cramped office, next to an evangelical church.
  It would grow to become one of the most successful biotech companies.
  (View Tweet)
• Ted Turner launched CNN six months after the start of the 1980 recession.
  (View Tweet)
• Genzyme launched in the recession year of 1981.
  It was part of a long journey to develop a treatment for Gaucher disease. 
  Its first office was an old clothing warehouse, next to the Tufts Medical School in Boston.
  Sanofi acquired Genzyme in 2011 for more than $20 billion.
  (View Tweet)
• MTV launched in the 1981 recession.
  It was to supposed be called TV-1, but the name was taken. 
  They had just 250 videos at launch because music labels weren’t used to making them.
  Cable operators balked at carrying the channel so they launched the “I Want My MTV” ad campaign. https://t.co/vGWvISdDwS (View Tweet)
• Electronic Arts launched during the 1982 recession.
  Trip Hawkins was an early Apple employee. 
  But he saw his future in games.
  He personally funded EA for the first six months
  He was going to call it Amazin’ Software, but wanted to recognize software as an art form.
  (View Tweet)
• Sun Microsystems launched during a recession in 1982.
  Its peak valuation topped $200 billion.
  Of note, Facebook moved to Sun’s old campus, after Oracle bought Sun.
  Also… ==Andy Bechtolsheim (pictured here) was Google’s first investor.
  He wrote Google a $100,000 check.==
  (View Tweet)
• Mailchimp began in the 2001 recession.
  Ben and Dan had a web design firm. 
  They’d used severance from their dotcom jobs to launch.
  They found clients wanted to reach customers via email.
  Chestnut used code from a failed e-greeting card product to start.
  The first logo:
  (View Tweet)
• Airbnb started in the 2008 recession.
  It was first an email idea in 2007.
  Brian and Joe needed rent money. 
  So they rented out sleeping space on mattresses in their apartment. 
  They even offered Pop Tarts. 
  Their engineer friend Nathan later joined as the third co-founder.
  (View Tweet)
• Uber started during the 2009 recession.
  Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp came up with the idea at a conference in Paris.
  The initial idea was more of a limo timeshare service. 
  But both wanted to disrupt the taxi business in San Francisco.
  “UberCab” rolled out in SF in 2010.
  (View Tweet)
• Slack started in the 2009 recession. 
  It was originally “Tiny Speck.”
  The goal was to create an online game.
  That didn’t work.
  But along the way, they built a new system for internal communication.
  Salesforce acquired Slack in 2020 for $28 billion.
  https://t.co/Uco6EVPUng (View Tweet)
• Square started during the Great Recession in 2009.
  Entrepreneur Jim McKelvey was also an accomplished glassblower.
  But he couldn’t accept American Express sales due to high fees.
  His former intern Jack Dorsey had since co-founded Twitter. 
  They teamed up to find a solution.
  (View Tweet)
• WhatsApp was founded during the recession in 2009.
  Founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum had both worked together at Yahoo. 
  They were both rejected for jobs at Facebook. 
  Ultimately, Facebook ended up buying their business for $19 billion.
  (View Tweet)
• Finally, Venmo started in the 2009 recession.
  Founders Andrew and Iqram had been college roommates. 
  They initially planned a music startup…
  …text a band to get an emailed mp3 of their latest concert.
  But pivoted to payments when Iqram visited Andrew and forgot his wallet.
  (View Tweet)