Where Are The Marketing Cockroaches?

In this essay Paul Graham explores how innovation and good ideas can still flourish in a recession. "Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.  For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world.  The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill.  Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.  If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to be a cockroach even than to keep your job.  Customers may drop off individually if they can no longer afford you, but you're not going to lose them all at once; markets don't reduce headcount."  Graham, as an uber-hacker and innovative VC is talking about the Silicon Valley tech bubble.  However, as the media and marketing world goes through its own hard times there will, no doubt, be many cockroaches emerging from the rubble to satisfy modern consumers' needs.  Which areas do you think they will be in?

Comments

[Johnnie Moore]

James, thanks for reminding me of Paul Graham. "Think like a cockroach" strikes me as quite a comforting way to frame a response to what's going on out there!

[James Cherkoff]

Hey Johnnie, yes I like his idea of being difficult to kill-off....instead of ruling the world.