Is it ever a bad time to be an entrepreneur? When times are great they have lots of potential investors to fund outlandish ideas that at times may seem highly speculative. When times are bad, entrepreneurs are some of the best bootstrappers around and create high value propositions for ailing businesses or thrifty consumers. Finding and creating value is what the entrepreneur specializes in; it’s an ancient form of arbitrage that can thrive in just about any type of market.
The last five years have left the world economy in notoriously poor condition. The credit crunch has hit consumers and businesses hard, and stifled cash flow, loans, and all kinds of funding from angel to venture capital. Millions of people have been laid off of cushy cubicle jobs, pensions have been lost, and 401k’s have been decimated by highly volatile movements in the financial markets. At the same time, the cost of technology has never been lower, the value of that technology has never been higher, and highly valuable talent is collecting unemployment checks. In short, it’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur, here’s why:
