What Is The Best Time To Start A Business?

During my career, I have been a COO of a start-up telecom firm, a CFO of a regional law firm, an EVP of an international real estate brokerage firm, and I have owned commercial real estate firm. In addition, I co-founded a college lacrosse recruiting service, and I invented and patented a watch to track workouts. I finally decided that my strength was in coaching business professionals to achieve their success and run their own businesses. As someone who has started my own company during several phases of life and in my career, I have started businesses when I was single, when I was married, with kids, without kids, during full-time employment and when unemployed. For me, the best time was when I finally committed to never working for anyone else again; this occurred after accepting my income. My opinion and potential would forever be capped if I continued to be an employee.

It took several careers, and quite a few failings to get to my “best time”. In fact, for me, the best time coincided with the Great Recession of 2008. This created greater challenges and required more commitment than if I had started during a growing market. Interesting enough, I just started a new division of my company when the market recently trended to a recession because of the pandemic. Something about starting in recessions create a greater sense of urgency. And, if positioned correctly, you get to help people who really can use your services.