Sital Ruparelia

During the last financial services downturn in 2002, I made the decision to leave my job as a recruiter and start up my own consulting business.

At the time, some people thought I was crazy: “the markets are so bad – isn’t it a bad time?” I actually thought it was the perfect time.

You see, I had always wanted to start my own business – and felt the banking downturn after the bursting of the dot.com boom and 9/11, was the best time to do it.   After all, I was often working 60-70 hour weeks for someone else and not getting the financial return due to the state of the market. So I figured I’d be better off putting that effort towards my own business which was geared towards segments of the market that were more lucrative and better played to my strengths. I knew that if I applied myself to something I was passionate about I’d succeed regardless of what happened in the economy. So I made the jump and have never regretted it.

Which is why I really enjoyed reading an article by Paul Graham titled ‘Why to Start a Start up in Bad an Economy.’

As he points out, start ups: “succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.

Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you’re the right sort of person, you’ll win even in a bad economy. And if you’re not, a good economy won’t save you.”

The next 18 months are going to be a tough time within financial services. Earnings and bonus potential will fall drastically, there will me more regulation, more cost cutting and you’ll be expected to do much more with fewer resources. So if you there is an entrepreneur hidden inside of you then don’t let the state of the economy put you off. It may be good time to start thinking more seriously about it. As Graham points out – your success is likely to have more to do with you than the state of the economy.

To read the full article, click here.

(By the way, thanks to Tim Ferriss for pointing out the article on Twitter)