The headline in The Wall Street Journal doesn’t exactly give a reader confidence: Economic Woes Abroad Bode Ill for the U.S. (link may require subscription).
Major economies abroad are languishing. The Euro Zone recession is stretching out longer. China faces fears of a slowdown. An increase in payroll taxes here at home is restraining consumer spending.
Sounds like time to hunker down.
Don’t even think about starting something new.
The risks are simply too high.
Except…
Things aren’t going to get easier.
Oh sure, the economy will improve. Eventually.
But why wait? FedEx, Microsoft, and SalesForce all opened for business during a recession.
Maybe you need the right office space.
Except Michael Dell started his computer business in his dorm room. Kevin Plank started Under Armor in his grandma’s basement. And Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com out of his garage.
Maybe you need money.
That didn’t stop Sergey Brin and Larry Page who funded Google using their credit cards. Or Sara Blakely used just $5,000 to start Spanx. And Pierre Omidyar started eBay in his spare time with no upfront funding.
Perhaps you’re waiting to gain the right experience.
Don’t. Mark Zuckerberg was twenty when he started coding the site that would become Facebook. Andrew Mason was just 26 when he started Groupon. And Catherine Cook was just 18 when she started MyYearbook.
Now will always be a bad time to start a business.
There are always reasons to wait.
Steven Pressfield calls this the resistance. (And if you haven’t read his book, The War of Art and are still waiting to start your new business, buy and read it now.)
Successful small business owners don’t wait. They use the resources they have to create their own opportunities. And they work hard to succeed.
Which means that there’s never been a better time to start your small business.
So what are you waiting for?
Start your business now.
Photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc
