Money for Entrepreneurs

During a recession is a very good time to start a company. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari during a significant downturn in 1972, and that allowed them to share risk with business partners, which allowed them to keep the costs low.

The founders said in an article: “For example, we were able to move into a large facility. Our meager balance sheet could never have supported that rent, but the landlord looked at us a a better option than just leaving the building vacant. Also, our vendors were all willing to provide long terms for payment on their parts and services.

The most important part of all was that I had my pick of the best engineers and managers in Silicon Valley. Since many of their friends were laid off, the thought of moving to a fun job at a new start-up seemed not that much more risky to them than staying put where they were. Our ability to cherry-pick the best of the best allowed us to crush any technical problems we encountered and the talent we amassed powered Atari as not just a game market leader but also a technical super power. We were the first non-government organization to use the N channel MOS semiconductor, and we basically put that technology on the map. We innovated on so many technical levels that by the time I left the company we had a 85 percent market share.”

Many things are better for a start-up during a recession. Now is the time to start a company. It is very important that the business plan and all paperwork has been updated to this economy. Financial Projections calculated more than 2 years ago, need to be re calculated. Marketing plans need to be updated to include Social Media and internet marketing if applicable.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 11:50 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs, Mandate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.