When’s the last time you took a risk? I mean a real risk. Not some namby pamby risk, but a full-blown, gut-wrenching, beads of sweat on the forehead kind of risk. For the majority the answer is probably “not in a long time”, and for the majority of the majority the answer is probably “never”. So if you had to take a risk, would you be prepared? Do you know your “risk profile”? And I don’t mean just in the sense of your financial portfolio.  I’m talking about physical, emotional, intellectual, and yes – financial.  You should invest some time in exploring both your risk tolerance (how much risk you feel comfortable with in pursuing your goal) and your risk capacity (how much risk you must take to achieve your goal).

Now is the time to take risks. “What?” you say. Now? In the midst of a massive, global economic downturn when unemployment is at some of the highest levels since the Great Depression. Now, when companies are failing left and right and venture capitalists are retreating back into their shells. The answer is “yes” and here’s four reasons why.

• While the cost of capital may still be high, the cost of entry into most markets is low. You have hundreds, if not thousands of resources and platforms at your disposal that have little or no upfront costs. The largest investment you will make is that of your personal time and passion. Gary Vaynerchuk shares this passion in his book Crush It! I suggest you pick up a copy and give it a quick read. If you’re looking for some inspiration to get you “over the hump” and into the world of social media and networking then this is the book for you.
• There are lots of people out there just like you. People who may be in the same (un)employment situation who are looking for an opportunity to branch out or try something new.  Granted, their motivation may be survival, but still they probably share the same desire or need to take a chance that they would have never before considered.  So through the pooling of time, energy, passions and resources you can create critical mass, accelerate your development process and hopefully minimize, or at least share the risk.
• We’ve all heard that old saying, “necessity is the mother of invention”.  While necessity may be the “mother”, opportunity is the “crazy aunt” in the closet. And the global marketplace is full of opportunity.  Take Zynga for example.  Who would have thought that investors would pour $180M into a company that makes a bunch of games that end in “ville”, played mostly by baby-boomers on top of a social networking platform (an average of 175,000,000 people visit Facebook everyday) developed by some kid in his dorm room a few years ago? While your idea may seem crazy or far fetched, it probably has a community of interest out there somewhere.
• In the IT world we are enamored with the “as a service” model.  We started with software (Saas), then moved to hardwared (HaaS), then infrastructure (IaaS), then the platform (PaaS), and so on and so on.  Finally we got smart and coined the term “everything as a service” (XaaS).  My point here is that it’s not just about “products” and all the trappings that go with them. Services can take any shape and form, and they can be shared and combined with other services to make new services. They can be easily reassembled. You can subscribe to them instead of paying for them all at once. And as we have (unfortunately) learned, people are prone to tolerate the lower levels of service we receive from them (as we do with our mobile phones, internet connections, twitter outages, etc., etc.) The net result is like the first bullet, it’s fairly easy to get into this market. The real work is in staying there.  Watch out for that thing called groundswell.

The following video of Peter Diamandis (courtesy of Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner) reminds us that great things would not have happened if people weren’t willing to take risks. (note: if the video does not appear please click the “refresh” button on your browser”)

Once you’ve decided to take that leap of faith, maybe you should adopt ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me” as your theme song…  Or maybe not, depending on your taste in music!