Why now is a great time to start up - bizjournals:

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But for those who studg entrepreneurship — and those who’ve started businessed during a recession a downturn providesgreat opportunities. It however, common sense and a great idea that has a chanceof “During a boom time, when there’s plent y of money available for good ideas and projects can be competed into said Bob Hendershott, an associate professor at Santa Clarza University’s Leavey School of Busines and a specialist in entrepreneuriao finance.
But in a Hendershott said the positives in startinf a business can outweigh the in part because the opportunity to move up in a positio or find a new jobis “Spend time getting stuff out there that a potentia l user can try,” he said. “Focus on whether you will have the resourcesx to do what you set out to do and provthe concept. It doesn’t make sense to try to sell Sun an idea if ittakees $3 million unless you have access to thoses resources.” Tom Gallatin and his co-founders at startedf their Milpitas-based network monitoring company for far less than that in 2002.
The six partnerxs — all technology industrg veterans — chipped in about $10,00 0 each and joined what Gallatincalls “the working wives because the men relied on theitr spouses’ salaries to survive. To meet their space they worked out of the corne of a contract manufacturing business that needed help payinv itsutility bills. The venture capitak community wanted nothing to dowith them. “Wew tried about 35 VCs up and down Sand Hill and we were rejected by all of them becauses of the choice of markets we were going said Gallatin, who started his career at Hewlett-Packard Co. in the 1970sx and went on to do stints atInteo Corp. and Tandem Computers.
“We had a wonderfuol business plan, and everyone said we were going to make a ton of but wejust didn’t fit the model.” Gigamo n shipped its first product in 2005. Now, Gigamon’w data access systems are deployed atthe country’s larges t telecom companies, including AT&f Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp.; cables companies such as Comcast Corp. and Cox Communicationsx Inc.; and hundreds of manufacturing, financial, industrial, medical, utilituy and government networks in more than40 countries. The business is cash-positive and needs new officse space. It plans to expanfd its current head count of32 employees.
“We stayede cheap, we didn’t try to do anythingg fancy, and we leveraged our Rolodex Gallatin said. “In a down economy, people are out therd with time on their and we found highly skilled people at the end of the layoff cycle who were readty to come in and take a chancer because theyknew us.” In San President Jeff Kerr launchee his business placing ATMs in hotels and airports in but decided to spin it into a franchise business in 2002. Even aftetr the dot-com bust and the terrorist attacksof 11, 2001, the business wasn’t hit hard becauswe Kerr ran it lean.
Rents decreased as a resul of the economy, and that helped Kerr find Class A office space in downtown San Low interest rates allowed him to buy andfinance equipment, while the unemployment rate enabled him to hire a talented marketin department. ACFN has since sold 128 ATM franchisesx inthe U.S. and Canada, and it became one of the fastest-growinbg companies in the country, listed in Inc. “The biggest advice I give peopled is tostay lean,” he said. “Be financially responsible and watcyour commitments, use controlled growth and make sure what you do makeas sense in the long term.
” Ann managing director of Hummer Winblacd Venture Partners, started her first company in when “we had 11 perceng unemployment, people were waitinh in line to get gas, the president had resignesd and the Vikings lost the Super she said. She launched , an accounting software company, for and she sold it six years later for morethan $15 Winblad co-founded the venture firm that bears her name in 1989. She said a downturnj gives entrepreneurs acompetitivd advantage, especially if they can find investors or get fundinf because “the pond is cleaner.
“In reality, any time is the righ t time to start a good independent ofthe economy,” Winblad “It does take time to builed and march into the but you have to have a value