Today we hear more and more about people starting their own businesses. Acording to a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, adults ages 55 to 64 are the group currently most likely to do so.

The volatile economy and depreciated retirement accounts are just a few of the reasons some people give for starting their own business—and these are people who may never have considered doing so before. They want to shore up their nest eggs, supplement retirement income, or avoid returning to the corporate world for a job. But is now the right time to get started?

Well, it depends on the type of business you want to start. But in general, for the types of businesses most people 50 years of age and older are starting, the answer is yes. Here are some reasons:

• Opportunities are created by changes in the marketplace, which is definitely something we've seen in the past several years. Disruptions in the status quo create opportunities for the alert entrepreneur. One only has to look at history for examples of companies that have started and flourished in down economies; they include General Electric, McDonald's, and Microsoft.

• Many baby boomers hope to start businesses that have low start-up costs. At 50-plus years old, they want to minimize their start-up investment and the associated financial risks. Many of these business people self-finance, so tight credit in the current economy will not have the effect on them that it will on business startups requiring a lot of capital.
  Starting a business takes time. If you've just retired or lost your job, time might be the resource you have in great abundance. By using your time to plan, research, develop, and test the market, you'll be poised to take advantage of economic growth as it occurs. Starting a business in a slower economy provides time for you to learn valuable lessons, gather information, and establish a track record that will prepare your business for growth.

• Customers are different now. Loyalty to current vendors often loosens in changing markets as buyers look for better value and less-expensive product and service alternatives.

• Your "opportunity cost" may be low. The opportunity cost of a decision is what is given up when you choose one alternative over your next-best alternative. For those who are retired or displaced from their job, the opportunity cost (what they give up by starting their own business) may be as relatively minor as golf or watching "Oprah."

• Some business costs will be lower than they would be in a thriving economy. These include employee costs (talented employees may find themselves out of work and willing to work for less), rent, office equipment and furniture, advertising, and the like.

These are a few of the many factors that may influence your decision as to whether to start a business. Only you can decide whether the time is right for you personally. Yet I urge you to consider this quote from Mark Twain, in which he comments on how others struggled with similar decisions more than 100 years ago:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."