I sharpened my metaphorical pencil and brooded. I decided to write some simple tips on how a software company could survive in a recession, and make best use of it. As always, I sat down in front of a blank screen and stared at it. I waited for the muse to whisper inspiration in my ear. “Phil”, came the old familiar voice of inspiration in my ear. “This subject is a dead cert. Your company was founded in the nineteen seventies, and has been in business ever since. You’ve done well, generally speaking” “Don’t listen to her”, whispered a voice in my other ear. Damn it, I thought, my conscience has woken up. “A lot of your efforts were spent advising other companies how to do it, or in writing software for other people. You even copped out entirely on occasion and went contacting or acting as a consultant. OK, I’ll admit that you always did it via your company but it is a cop-out.” “Phil! Your conscience is being too harsh.” replied my inspiration. “You have a contribution. After all, very few software companies have even survived that long. All your friends and colleagues have simply vanished into the night, joined the Civil Service, retired, or become wizened and burned-out senior execs in multinationals.” A slightly desperate edge was detectable in my conscience. It could see it was losing the argument. “Look, Phil; these guys might take your advice. Beware. Here they are, putting on their snorkels and goggles and waiting, for the first time, for the coming flood of recession. No bullshit now” “OK guys”, I thought, “I’ll try to behave, but because the real survivors such as Bill Gates and …er… Larry Ellison aren’t going to blog on this site I’ll have to do something. Maybe as I’ve been clinging to flotsam and holding my breath for so long now, someone might enjoy reading a survivor’s tale.” Recessions come fairly regularly, and one adapts. There are actually many tactics that you can use to survive. One tactic is to cut and run. A chum of mine disappears every time there is a recession since he has an Undertaker’s business on the side. He was always a bit quiet about this, but I’d always wondered why all his cars were black Mercedes with huge backs. I’d supposed he had underworld connections, but in fact, whenever the software business went quiet, he’d put his company on ice and he’d busy himself with burying the dead. The next boom time, he’d bob back up, put away his black frock-coat as if nothing had happened, and continue selling software. Another friend of mine developed payroll software when times were good, but after he once fell victim to a recession, he trained as a Butcher. Now, whenever there is a recession, he is out in his van delivering sausages. Some jobs are recession-proof. My own tactic has been different. I’ve always worked rather like a commercial plantsman. Recessions are like the seasons. Whenever the phone stops ringing, and the icy blast of economic slowdown happens, I prepare frantically for the next summer. Each software boom tends to be different from the last, and the plants put out as soon as possible in the early spring and cherished under glass are the ones that yield the most. Recessions are really the only time to develop software. The fact that the phone has stopped ringing means one less distraction as one works frantically to ensure that, when the next boom happens, you have software products finished, tested, and ready to sell. If a plantsman spent his winter idling or moping about the lack of sun, rather than rushing around planting seeds, taking cuttings, splitting crowns, dividing roots, and so on, his business wouldn’t survive. The plants he sells in the summer were started off in the harshest part of the winter when the coming of the heat of summer seems to be impossibility. In the freemasonry of the profession of software developers, I hear stories of new exciting startups inspired by the recession. I hear of friends who have dropped everything to build new applications. The other day I called in to see a friend who has a new startup company developing a ‘cloud-based’ business suite in Adobe Air and Flex. We marveled at the application. “A perfect time to develop radical new software!” he said, chuckling. More or less; If only the economy had the regularity of the seasons. A couple of times I’ve been caught out being on the point of publishing an application that has taken a year to develop only to find that the buyer has disappeared, as a victim of the tide of recession. One has to adapt, and find new customers. One day, I shall tell the story of the application that started out as Multimedia encyclopedia of Opera, morphed into a CDROM of naked ladies, and finally underpinned the customer-facing application of a major retail bank. Such is the real world of software. One adapts, and rides with the blows. The important thing is to realize that the world economies are subject to wild variations in growth and recession, and your business plan must always acknowledge that fact.