Many startups are good to start in recessions, because the new technology they develop is often cheaper than what it replaces. You just have to pitch it from the money-saving side. E.g. if you build something with 2x performance for a given price, then in bad economic times you want to sell it as saving people 50% for a given performance rather than giving people twice the performance for the same price.

(I realize your question was about startups for people who are out of work. I just wanted to point out that that is not the only, or probably the best, type of startup to start in a recession.)

I think that's an excllent point. I know from talking to clients recently looking for some freelance web design work that their primary interest right now is maintaining good cash flow, so they would rather have what you said, the same amount of customers reaching them for a lower price, rather than the potential of more customers for a higher price.

I dont like competing on price in this fashion however, as it feels like a race to the bottom and quality suffers. Although there's not much choice if businesses cant legitimately afford to pay.

Ok, I wrote a large comment first but I dont want to waste all your time.

Basically it was giving a taxback service to people.

I'm in Ireland, and the average taxback you can get is €850, but only 55% of people bother to get it.

It's for things such as rent allowance, bin charges etc.

A small amount of companies offer to do this service, one charges 15%, about €125 on average.

So with the huge dole queues, I would drive around to these queues in the few social welfare offices around Dublin and hand out leaflets offering to do this service for them. Then an accountant I would hire would do the actual paper work.

There are 30,000 people joining these queues every month, 10,000 in Dublin. And these are people who need money badly, I know I do.

Now maybe this is just a dumb idea, I wouldnt reach all of of those people, and presuming I want to make a €1000 euros profit a week, (assuming the same amount of costs) I'd need to get 3 customers per work day.

Assuming 2% conversion that's 150 leaflets to hand out a day.

But all ideas start somewhere, and a few bad ones can lead to a viable one.

So that's my idea Hackers, let me know what you think and lets hear yours. It doesnt have to involve dole queues, heh, it can be anything really, but the way this economy is I'm going to need all the ideas I can get. There's a reason I know about the size of dole queues, I was in one myself today, and it's not a nice feeling.