
Ask HN: What kind of side business is good to start during an economic crisis? - amrrs
Anytime we have to ask money during an economic crisis seems unjust and I&#x27;m not sure what kind of business would look ethical to start and charge during an economic crisis?<p>Companies like Zoom and many other companies are riding on this wave. But if i launch something during this time that&#x27;s particularly to leverage this situation, does it count unethical?
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adventured
I'll give you an obvious example.

A service business that helps established businesses shift more of their work
to remote. The demand is enormous right now. Service businesses are labor
intensive, they don't scale easily, so during a boom demand time there is
never enough specialized labor to go around.

That will taper off after a while. So as you build the business, begin
offering other services to your new customers (services that are sustainable
after the remote boom fades).

Look for enduring businesses that are unlikely to fail short-term during the
economic disaster; businesses that have some forced regulatory-based demand
are ideal (certain small to mid-size insurance agencies; some things in real-
estate; law firms depending on the segment; and so on).

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tucaz
Stealing and coercing people is unethical.

Lying or misleading is unethical.

Offering a product or a service for someone who willingly wants to pay for the
product or service is not unethical at any level.

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cocktailpeanuts
A company like Zoom is "riding on this wave" because they've been working hard
until they reached this "overnight success".

I see a lot of people thinking they can do the same by "trying to ride the
wave", but I think that's short term thinking. If you build a startup just for
this situation, you will probably end up building opportunistic business that
has not much to do with your own vision.

Instead you should build something that is NOT obviously attractive during
this time so as not to jump into a red ocean. You should build something that
is unattractive today but powerful in the long run, because no one else would
be building this today while you pick up your users one by one. The key is you
should focus on building a great product instead of trying to make money
during this time.

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rayhendricks
Well Amazon is in the process of automating package delivery and cashiers. The
current pandemic has only sped up their efforts IMO. So anything in relation
to automating what you do in the office like IT or automating away parts of
sales will be in demand. Yes these are difficult problems, but they wouldn't
be multibillion dolar problems if they were easily solved.

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verdverm
Alcohol does well in recessions. There are lists out there for sectors that
have low beta w.r.t. recessions

How is it unethical to ask for compensation for your work or the value you
provide? Why would a downturn change this?

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saluki
Provide value.

If your business provides value/solve a pain point it will do well.

