Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches siliconvalley.com had an interesting report about Boal’s company, Coupons.com. 
“About nine months ago, Steven Boal, founder of Coupons Inc., began to see the fabled hockey-stick-like growth that has made fortunes for so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. That’s when he knew a recession was coming. … Boal, now 43, said he got the idea for the company from watching his father-in-
law clip coupons and thinking about how the coupon industry hadn’t changed in 25 years.” Only 17 days into March 2008, coupons.com had it best month ever.
Last night Fox News announced that “Consumer Confidence“ is @ a five year low, and housing prices are back @ 1987 levels. What this tells me is that people are scrimping every way they can. That “things” are much worse for TCMITS [the common man in the streets] than our politicians are willing to admit; that there can be successful businesses started in the face of whatever economic climate is prevailing.
Consider MommySavers : Mommysavers.com was conceived in early 2000 while its founder, Kimberly Danger, was home on maternity leave after having her daughter. Kimberly taught herself 
how to design web pages and began doing research for content. When Mommysavers.com was launched in April 2000 it was a simple site with about 20 pages. In 2007, it received over three million page views per month and is one of the leading Google pages for money saving tips and stay at home moms. The readership of thrifty moms drives the site; providing great tips, advice and ideas. Not content to sit on her laurels, Kim has written several books on Moms saving money. That equates to a lot of Google Adsense any way you cut it. Hank
I think any business you can develop that helps your target customer save money can do really well in a recession. I’m currently working on a business plan that hopefully will fair well in a recession because it saves businesses money on recruiting.
I think that MommySavers will do very well, when this recession is over. If it is ever over. But I think that a lot of people are realizing that they can’t just throw away dollars, but they’re going to think twice, and I still think that MommySavers will get great hits.
I agree with Jeff. Any time a business can offer consumers a way to save in a time when they are looking for ways to cut every price corner they will be successful. At a time during this recession, it is important for people to continue to spend money, so I think that businesses that encourage savings will be rapidly utilized and hopefully help to again boost spending.
Another idea is tips for selling things such as houses and cars. If people are trying to save any way they can this just gets harder.
Coupons.com makes me wonder how long coupons will continue to be offered. If we actually get into a recession (thats kind of a technicality, I don’t think we are technically in one yet, but we will get there), and continue to slide down further and further, will companies offer coupons if to many people are using them? Will they simply put a higher price on them to “pay” for the coupons? I am sure they know with some certainty right now how many people are using them and take that into consideration for internal estimates and probably for setting the price of the product…
As for mommy savers, that will probably continue to grow. Starting a family is a very expensive endeavor, and I am sure that there will always be a huge part of the population that will not be able to afford to buy everything they need/want for their children, which should sustain this site for a very long time, well, at least it will sustain this concept I couldn’t say if something better will come around.
Oh speaking of recession, check this out, 1USD = 1.573EUR!!! which really sucks when you have to order something for your car that costs 1200EUR, which turns into about 1900USD!!! In the year 2000 when bush took over the exchange rate was .8252EUR to 1 dollar! which would have made my parts cost 990USD. Great job bush. That only cost me 1000USD!!!!!!
Mommy Savers is a classic example of someone having a personal problem attempting to solve it and coming across a profitable business. I have never heard of this website (nor should I) but I am sure it is useful and it is something that I would refer to expecting or current moms looking to save a few dollars. In response to the potential recession that the United States is in. One word “Bush”
It looks like now is the time to start a company that helps people save money. We should use our business brainstorming ideas that we learned last class to come up with some good solid business ideas.
On tea leaves and numbers…
So in response to the whole “Bush” thing, I can understand that certain governmental leaders are not making the best decisions in terms of what can affect the economy. But I do want to point out that there are much smarter people on Wall Street that even got side-swiped by this whole mortgage meltdown and credit crunch which was probably the straw that broke the back for the economy. So maybe it isn’t Bush but rather bad advisers who can’t keep account of the money. Consider that Goldman Sachs was able to navigate its way through this whole mess due to an abnormal obsession with monitoring numbers coupled with correct business practices. Also, I would like to mention that the economy is cyclical, there are always times when this goes up and goes down, and while it was good in the Clinton years that credit cannot be taken fully by him. Sure, he made some good decisions, but he is not fully responsible, it is merely the market acting in the way it does.
With the companies mentioned above, it is great that they are able to profit right now. But what’s more interesting to me is that you can watch these companies as an outsider and notice that they are realistic economic indicators. Which makes me wonder what other companies are out there which also fit this description. Just because Fox News reports that consumer confidence is down doesn’t mean anything to me, because it’s just a survey sent out of only 5,000 U.S. households. Real results can be seen in the numbers, and in the companies catering to the middle class audience, those with the buying power.
I think it is important for people to realize that there is an actual definition of what a “recession” is. There is some debate as to what that definition should be (Typical definition is a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters which most econimists don’t agree with since it doesn’t take into account unemployment or consumer confidence, etc. but it is none the less the most widely used definition), but it is aggrevating to see so many people even “experts” throwing this word around seemingly arbitrarily. That being said, I have to agree with an above post that said it does look pretty definite that the U.S. will soon meet this definition.
Though the most obvious approach to a business in this time is to look for some type of money saving idea as has been mentioned above, I’d say that it is equally important to remember that one of the easiest times for the wealthy to make themselves even MORE wealthy is during a recession. Targeting this type of market may also be a way to have sucess with a new start-up in these economic times.
With all the brainstorming we did in my group, we just may come up with some crazy weird ideas, but that’s what brainstorming is for right? One of those off the wall ideas could be the best thing from your mind ever (in a money sense). However, even something as plain as starting a site to save people money turned out to be extremely profitable too.
All I know is the economy needs to take a turn for the better really soon, otherwise there are going to be a lot of big problems in the near future.
We all need to save more money. It is very interesting that business can be so prominent in a time of recession. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure type situation. ~John Fodor
I think saving more money is the most important part. If we all save money economy will be better. I also think that government and president have a lot to do with this issue. They need to make better/smarter decisons for us
I am not going to make this a political battle so here are the facts. Whether we are technically in a recession or not, the U.S. economy has been going downhill for years. This affect can be seen in many of our domestic and foreign markets. However, I think the whole point behind coupons.com and mommysavers is just to help people save money. I think their timing was just right, as more and more people are looking to save a buck wherever they can.
It’s a very smart move to simply step back and look at the general trends of a market and deduce what it is really saying. The example of synthesizing individual nodes of information, such as the housing market slump and the decline in consumer confidence into something useful: people want to save money! is perfect.
Eh, I hardly use coupons personally. I typically make most of my purchases online which is usually cheaper than buying them at the stores. If I see that something is on sale, I might buy it. If it’s not on sale, but I want it, I buy it.