While recessions are usually associated with job losses and business closures, sometimes these tough conditions can create a gap in the market for a new product or business venture. From the household goods brand founded during a 19th-century slump to the global tech companies started up during the late 00s' Great Recession, click or scroll through to see the huge global firms that were started in crises.

In the early 1800s the US experienced a financial crash known as the Panic of 1837, which kickstarted a depression that lasted more than a decade. That same year, William Procter and James Gamble started a soap company named Procter & Gamble. Deciding to base their business in Cincinnati, Ohio, the pair benefitted from the city’s status as a meatpacking center and used by-products from the meatpacking industry to produce their soaps.

The company survived the economic challenges, going on to supply soaps to the Union Army during the Civil War that ensued in the 1860s. The business has weathered multiple economic crises over its 183 years of business and today is the largest consumer goods company on the planet, owning brands including Fairy, Tide, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Olay, and many more.

In 1907 in the US, there was a financial panic which led to a recession lasting between 1908 and 1910. At the same time automaker General Motors (GM) was founded in 1908 by William Durant and Charles Stewart Mott in Flint, Michigan. GM’s launch was well-timed in many ways. After surviving the Panic, GM was able to buy many other companies – including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Catercar, Elmore, Ewing and Oakland (later Pontiac) – as the economy bounced back.

By 1929, GM was the largest passenger car maker in the US. The company continued to grow throughout the following decades, but its luck began to run out from the 1990s, facing tough competition from Japanese car companies including Toyota and Honda. Financial troubles were worsened by the 2008 recession, which saw it bailed out by the US government. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2009 but reorganized and went back to being the largest automaker in the world in 2011, albeit only briefly. 

During the Great Depression, the US had a recession which lasted 13 months between 1937 and 1938. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began working on the company that would become Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1938, officially founding the company a year later. HP started out producing electronic test and measurement equipment, including the radio oscillator used by Walt Disney to test audio equipment for the movie Fantasia. This early contract with Disney was the firm’s first big break.

HP moved into computers in 1966, releasing the HP 2116A computer to control its equipment. By the 1980s, the company had produced a range of personal computers and calculators. Today, the company is worth $12.6 billion (£10.2bn). 

Read about big companies that started with nothing

Although the post-war period is generally associated with economic growth and prosperity across much of the world, there was a recession between 1953 and 1954 in the US that saw unemployment grow to 6% and GDP fall by 2.2%. Fast food giant Burger King was founded in 1953 by Keith Kramer and Matthew Burns, with the first restaurant opening in Jacksonville, Florida. It was originally called Insta-Burger King, taking its name from the “Insta Broiler” ovens used to cook the burgers.

The name was changed to Burger King in 1959 when the franchise was taken over by new owners, who restructured and reorganized the company. Today, Burger King is one of the biggest fast food companies on the planet with more than 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries. 

Hotel chain Hyatt was founded two months into the eight month-long 1957-1958 recession, which saw US GDP decline by 3.3% and unemployment rise to 6.2%. It all started when entrepreneur Jay Pritzker bought a motel in Los Angeles called Hyatt House for $2.2 million, which is equivalent to $20 million (£16.3m) in today’s money. It wasn’t exactly the safest business decision given the reduction in economic activity during the recession, which had impacted the travel and tourism business.

Yet the risk clearly paid off, as Hyatt and his family were able to successfully grow the business over the following decade, setting up its international arm Hyatt International in 1968. Nowadays the company has more than 900 hotels and resorts and is worth just under $5 billion (£4bn). 

Delivery company FedEx was founded in 1971, although it didn’t begin formal business operations until 1973, when its founder moved operations to Memphis, Tennessee. That meant it coincided with the 1973-1975 recession, which caused global economic decline, with unemployment in the US peaking at 9% in May 1975, two months after the recession had ended. Despite these challenging circumstances FedEx thrived almost immediately, delivering 186 packages to 25 US cities in its first night of operation.

The business went from strength to strength, purchasing seven Boeing 727 aircraft in 1977 and reaching $1 billion in revenues by 1983 – equivalent to $2.6 billion (£2bn) today.

Microsoft was set up by Bill Gates (pictured) and Paul Allen on 4 April 1975 – technically one month after the 1970s recession ended, although the US economy was still slowly recovering from its effects. The company, originally named Micro-Soft, started out producing software for an early personal computer and by 1978 it had sales of more than $1 million, which is $3.9 million (£3.2m) in today’s money.

Gates and Allen brought their first personal computer to the market in 1981 and by the late 1980s Microsoft had become the biggest personal computing company in the world by sales. It’s helped Bill Gates to become the current second richest person in the world, with a net worth of $98 billion (£80.3bn) according to Forbes Billionaires list 2020.

Microsoft is just one of the companies donating money and materials to fight COVID-19

At the beginning of the 1980s there was a global recession triggered by an energy price crisis in 1979, with the recession lasting between July 1981 and November 1982 in the US. Despite the economically challenging circumstances, Apple employee Trip Hawkins (pictured left) decided there was no better time to leave his stable job and start up a software firm, founding Electronic Arts (EA) in May 1982.

Fortunately for Hawkins, he was entering the market at a boom time for personal computing. It shipped its first games in the spring of 1983, which included Hard Hat Mack, Pinball Construction Set, Archon, M.U.L.E., Worms?, and Murder on the Zinderneuf. The company quickly rose to prominence and it looks set to weather the storms of the coronavirus pandemic too, with many more taking to video games during lockdown. 

Another company founded during the early 1980s recession was CNN. On 1 June 1980 the news channel went live, introducing audiences to the concept of round-the-clock news broadcasting for the first time. Founded by media mogul Ted Turner, in 1991 it became the only broadcaster to communicate from inside Iraq during the Persian Gulf War – an inside scoop that helped it to get ahead of the traditional 'Big Three' American broadcasters.

Since then, CNN has stood out for its 24-hour rolling coverage of live news events, significantly being the first cable news channel to break the news of the 9/11 attacks. In 1996, CNN was absorbed by entertainment conglomerate Time Warner Inc. for $7.3 billion, which is equivalent to $12 billion (£9.7bn) in today’s money.

In 2007 the world was in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s. At this time roommates Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky stated renting out the floor space in their San Francisco apartment to earn some extra cash, letting visitors stay on air beds – hence the name Airbnb. Joining forces with their former roommate Nathan Blecharczyk, in August 2008 they officially launched the company. 

The company actually benefitted from the difficult economic circumstances, with Airbnb providing low-cost, short-term accommodation at a time when many people were unable to afford hotels. After gaining a $600,000 seed investment from Sequoia Capital, the firm’s growth was explosive. 

How Airbnb went from one bedroom to a billion-dollar company

Founded in November 2008 in the middle of the Great Recession, Groupon specializes in allowing companies to provide deals and incentives to customers. Entering the market at a time when people were more budget-conscious than ever, Groupon helped businesses to continue to sell their products while easing people back into spending on non-essentials.

By the end of 2009, Groupon had spread to 28 US cities and it showed no sign of slowing down. By the time of its IPO in June 2011, Groupon was worth $16 billion (£13bn) – although the company may have peaked at that time. Nowadays, the business is worth $630 million (£512m) and its stock price is falling fast. The company says its turnaround strategy will involve shifting away from deals and towards local experiences.

Uber was founded towards the end of the Great Recession, in March 2009, by friends Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick. Initially named UberCab, the idea for the now-ubiquitous taxi app was dreamed up by a pair after they struggled to hail a taxi in Paris in 2008. The company successfully received funding in a $1.25 million (£1m) round led by First Round Capital in October 2010 after testing out its service and launching in San Francisco earlier that year.  

Despite managing to survive tough economic circumstances, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride for Uber. It reported a global loss of $3.8 billion (£3.1bn) in 2016 after making losses from the Chinese arm of the business, which it subsequently sold off for $7 billion (£5.7bn). The company has also faced opposition from traditional cab drivers around the world, who argue that the company is taking their business and avoiding licencing fees to cut costs. The coronavirus pandemic has also hit business hard.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey started payment processing system Square in 2009, along with Jim McKelvey. At the time, much of the world was still in the grip of a historic recession. The idea came when McKelvey was unable to complete a sale as he didn’t accept credit cards, so the pair decided to develop a mobile-based credit card reader – named the Square Reader – which could take payments via a phone’s audio jack.

The business clearly weathered the storms however, and today Square is used by more than 30 million people worldwide and is worth $34.36 billion (£28.1bn). The company recorded losses in the first quarter of 2020 as fewer payments take place at bricks-and-mortar stores, but the rise in online purchases led its stock to surge by 11% in early May.

Another now-ubiquitous tech company founded during the Great Recession is WhatsApp. The messaging app was started up by former Yahoo employees Jan Koum (pictured) and Brian Acton. By allowing users to get in touch even if they didn’t have the same mobile network, it quickly gained global popularity and reached a billion users in 2016 – just seven years after it launched.

The company was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for an enormous $19 billion (£15.5bn). In February 2020, the company announced it had reached two billion users. 

Now read about the industries facing the toughest comeback after COVID-19