Some of you have begun your journey to business ownership, some are about to, and the rest of you will probably do so in the future.  Many people will say we live in troubled times and wonder aloud if NOW is the time to start a business.  After all, our nation is engaged in war on terrorism, the danger of inflation lurks ahead, we are in or about to enter a recession, record high oil prices are challenging the economics of our transportation system, and the success of future technologies is uncertain.

Is this the time to go into business?  Let’s see what we can learn from history…

There is a saying, “When opportunity knocks, you better be there to open the door.”  In 1968 Calvin Klein used $2,000 of his own money and $10,000 of his business partner’s to open Calvin Klein, Inc.  He had graduated from the NY Fashion Institute of Technology in 1962 and still worked part-time at his father’s grocery store to pay for his design studio.  Friends told him, “don’t be a fool and risk your future, work for someone else.”  But Calvin, knowing he had a product that was unique, held on.  He notes that his first order came literally by accident when a coat-buyer from the Bonwit Teller Department Store got off on the wrong floor and wandered into Calvin’s workshop to ask for directions.  Impressed by Calvin’s unique trench coats, the buyer placed an order for $50,000, telling Klien, “Tomorrow you will have been discovered.”  The order from Bonwit and a subsequent editorial in Vogue magazine did indeed launch Calvin Klein, who noted from that day on buyers came to him and he never had to promote his goods.  When opportunity knocked, Calvin was there.  Will you be?

Be prepared to break down walls and do the unimaginable.  In 1896 when Henry Ford built his first car in a rented shed, he found it was to wide for the doorway.  Onlookers told him to be reasonable and “stop his foolishness.”  Ford, impatient to demonstrate his car, took an ax and  knocked down the brick wall so he could drive his car out.  Ford’s subsequent Model T is acknowledged as the car that ‘put America on wheels,’ created the concept of suburbs, and led to highways connecting the nation.  Could you imagine where we would be if Ford just gave up and went home to dinner?  Most famous entrepreneurs have had to break down walls, both physical and literal.  Keep your ax handy!

People may tell you, “the economy is bad and may get worse, don’t go into business now.”  Let’s consider that for a moment.  Would you try to sell customized high price luxury items in an economy that was faltering?  When the nation was in a war with an uncertain outcome?  Paul Revere did.  He sold his products to merchants and noblemen who were not affected by the economy.  In all economic cycles there is a segment of the population that is thriving.  You can adjust your market to match it.  Revere moved from pewter items sold to the general public to silver items sold to the well-off.  Revere described himself as a connector.  He developed and used his social connections to make contacts with prospective customers, in other words he networked.  It was the difference that made him a household name in his day while many of his contemporaries were relatively anonymous.

There are NO EXCUSES.  Successful entrepreneurs work towards what they can do, and ignore family, friends, and societal norms that tell them they can’t.  What would you imagine the future would be for a black woman, born in 1867 in poverty stricken Louisiana, the daughter of former slaves?  Orphaned at the age of seven, having received no formal schooling she worked as a cotton-picker in the fields of lower Mississippi.  Married at 14 and widowed at 16 with a young daughter her future did not look promising.  Determined to educate her daughter, she moved to St. Louis and worked as a laundrywoman until in her early 20’s she contracted a scalp ailment that caused her to lose some of her hair. 

Embarrassed by her appearance, she took a job as a sales agent for a small company making cosmetics for blacks in order to be able to experiment with the samples.  In 1905, having found a formula that helped her, she opened her own business and began selling her scalp conditioning and healing formula.  While not an overnight success, Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower profits steadily increased as a result of continuous sales drives throughout the South. 

Fifteen years later, she owned a company that employed over 3,000 people, had opened a college in Pittsburgh to train her “hair culturists,” and Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker was the first known African-American woman to become a self-made millionaire. 

Asked her secret to success, she summed it up in five points:

• Perseverance
• Hard work
• Faith in herself and God
• Honest business dealings
• Quality products

She noted: “There is no royal flower-strewn path to success.  And, if there is, I have not found it – for if I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard.”

So, is this the right time to go into business?  It has less to do with the economic environment and more to do with the entrepreneur.  While not an entrepreneur himself, the character of Captain Picard in StarTrek is identified with a mantra that dictates what entrepreneurs must do to be a success:

“MAKE IT SO!”