Why now is the best time to become an entrepreneur

With record layoffs, and a dismal economy, the country’s economic climate may not present itself as the best time to start a business. Credit is tight, people aren’t spending any money, and productivity is down. Every day we are bombarded by media coverage of today’s recession and downturn. However, what the media doesn’t tell you is that even though many industries are in the midst of belt tightening, many other industries are doing better than ever. Despite what the media portrays, there has always been opportunity that arises in the midst of disaster. In the face of such dire economic news, today may actually be your best chance of becoming a successful entrepreneur.nn One thing that people must realize is that becoming a successful business owner is extremely difficult even in the best of times. There is a myth out there that if you own a business, you are rich and that you do not need to work hard. The reality however, at least with small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s), is that most business owners work harder than anyone. The success of a company depends greatly upon how much of yourself you are willing to give up for your company. 12 hour days 7 days a week is not unheard of for a business owner to be devoting to his business. Hard work, creativity and the willingness to do what it takes to make yourself a success is true no matter when you decide to start a business.nn The other thing to understand about becoming an entrepreneur is that despite working long hours, you must also be willing to make little to no money, and even lose money when you start your business. It is rare to become successful overnight. Starting a business takes perseverance in the face of adversity, and creativity to manifest opportunity where no opportunity is present. This also holds true whether the economy is doing well or poorly. Either way the same dedication, creativity and hard work is necessary to become successful.nn Despite these long hours with little to no pay, starting your own business can be an extremely rewarding process. If you have the ability and the dedication, your business will pay off in the long run. Eventually you will become successful, and while it doesn’t always happen, you at least have the opportunity to make much more money than you ever could working for someone else, and at the same time have the pride of knowing that you created something out of nothing, and even helped a lot of other people along the way.nnSo why is now the best time to start a business and become and entrepreneur? For many, there is no choice. If you have been laid off like so many other people and cannot find a job, you have an option: you can create your own job. Also for those people, and even those who currently have a job, you may simply have been dreaming of “going out on your own” and pursuing an idea for a business that you’ve had, but you’ve never had the courage to try it. Others simply have been waiting for the right time.nnI think that now is a great time to start your own business, especially if you don’t currently have a job. Though the media would have you believe otherwise, business loans are not impossible to come by. If you have good credit, you will be able to get a loan. Many businesses don’t even need a loan to start. Business bootstrapping, the idea that you can start a business with your own sources of funding as opposed to a bank’s money is becoming more and more prevalent these days. Some business can even be started with little or no startup capital.nnSo the barrier to start a business is not as large as you may think. You may also think that since nobody these days is buying anything it is a bad time to be trying to start a new endeavor. Again, despite what you see in the news, people still need goods and services. It also depends on how creative you are in what type of business you are looking to start. Retail businesses are feeling the crunch of bad consumer confidence, but accounting firms, business liquidators, and bankruptcy firms are seeing stellar growth these days. These businesses may not be the type of thing you would like to pursue, but they serve as an example that in these bad economic times, not everyone is doing poorly. If you know how to find opportunity, you can be successful in any economy.nnAs a final note, your first years of starting a business will be hard, but they will be hard whether the economy is good or bad. If you can get the lean years of your business out of the way while the economy is in recession, you will be perfectly poised to take advantage of the inevitable economic recovery. Imagine just starting to hit your stride as a business owner at the same time you find that consumers have decided to begin participating in the economy again. While you’ve forged your business in the fire of an ailing economy, your business, and you, has become stronger and more resilient from operating in the lean years. You will have the knowledge and experience through having succeeded when others have given up, and your business and you will be the better for it. Success will come much more rapidly as you are perfectly positioned to reap the rewards of a recovering environment.nnIt takes careful planning and dedication, and indeed courage to start a new enterprise in the face of such bad news. Nobody can guarantee that you will succeed, and you must make sure that you can afford to pick yourself up if your business venture does not work. But if you can become creative enough, and smart enough, now is the best opportunity to become an entrepreneur. History has shown that every economic disaster eventually ends, and the economy comes back stronger eventually. There is no reason to believe that this crisis is any different. Millionaires are made in chaos, and it is possible that you can become one too as long as you are willing to put in the hard work, dedication, creativity and indeed bravery, to seize the opportunity that our times have created for us.n