No Mercy No Malice

Scott Galloway: This Is the Best Time to Start a Business

The economic flood gates are about to open wide

Scott Galloway
Marker
Published in
9 min readMar 30, 2021

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A huge ocean wave breaks along the coast.
Photo: Luis Ascenso/CC BYY 2.0

Post-crisis periods are among history’s most productive eras. London rebuilt after the Great Fire with grand new architecture, and Europe, after the worst of its plagues, underwent a commercial revolution. The Marshall Plan turned enemies into allies, fomenting peace and prosperity for more than half a century. Leaders also emerge from crises. Ulysses S. Grant was a washed-up soldier without prospects until war broke out, but that war created the opportunity for Grant to save the Union and advance the cause of freedom. This is all to say: In the next 36 months, I believe our economy will birth a new generation of web 3.0 firms and leaders. Why?

I’ve started nine businesses. The best predictive signal for their success has turned out to be the phase of the economic cycle in which they were started. Put simply, the best time to start a business is on the heels of a recession. And while pandemic economics haven’t resulted in a garden-variety recession — in either its duration (short) or its recovery (K-shaped) — there are factors that make this the best time to start a business in more than a decade:

  • Unprecedented stimulus and savings resulting in a Nazaré-like wave…

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Scott Galloway
Marker

Prof Marketing, NYU Stern • Host, CNN+ • Pivot, Prof G Podcasts • Bestselling author, The Four, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona • profgalloway.com