photo by jphilipson

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about the monetary benefits of having a financial cushion. And I agree with myself. From a purely money standpoint, you’re an idiot if you don’t have at least something tucked away for when all your clients die of smallpox.

But that’s the money part of it. What about business wise? As in, business growth-wise? From that angle, I don’t know if it’s the best idea.

1. Not having a cushion lights a fire under your ass. From E-myth to StomperNet and everyone in between advises against analysis paralysis — what’s the absolute BEST typeface to use on the logo? Should we go with blue or green? Does this job contribute to my future business goals?

When you have no cushion, there’s no time for that shit. That freelance gig you’re dilly-dallying about bidding on? That’s tomorrow night’s dinner.

2. You’re forced to get creative. If you want to market yourself — and since you don’t have a cushion, marketing yourself would be a very good idea indeed — you have to actually think. Any idiot can buy a bunch of ads to get people to buy their service or check out their blog or order their book. But that’s not where the good stuff comes from.

When you have no money, you have to hustle. Your sole source of advertising might be the shirts you just had printed for fifty bucks. You might have to wear your cousin’s bunny suit and stand outside the radio station holding a sign that pleads “Ask me what I do!” Hell, you might even have to get off your ass and talk to some real, live people and ask them for business.

3. You’re going to learn to focus. When you have a cushy start-up loan or a quadzillion months of savings in the bank, it’s awful easy to get distracted. I mean, look at all there is to do out there! Flickr alone could kill a week.

But when you need work or exposure or sales, you focus like a laser. (Yes, Mom. A laser. In air quotes. From Austin Powers.)

When you need a check in the mail sooner rather than later, checking a blog to see if anybody responded to your witty and insightful comment doesn’t exactly seem like the most efficient use of your time.

4. You don’t lose the fire. When you’re first starting out, you’re burning to succeed. All you want is to get your hands in there and do it. You want to print those goddamn t-shirts by hand if you have to. Hanging around in your cubicle for 19 months until you feel you have enough start-up capital is soul-sucking. Your fire goes.

If your fire goes, soon enough those hand printed t-shirts don’t seem like such a good idea anymore and you’re signing the line for your fifth one percent cost-of-living raise in a row.

5. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll succeed. There’s a great saying I love:

“The best time to plant a tree was forty years ago. The second best time is today.”

These are comforting words today because you don’t have a tree. Don’t cry over lost tree planting opportunities, I always say. (OK, no, I don’t.) But do you think it would have been good advice forty years ago? Would you have said, “Well, maybe now’s not the perfect time. I’ll do it when I retire”? Not if you wanted the tree, you wouldn’t have.

I have no doubt there are countless thriving businesses run by entrepreneurs who waited till the time is right, and I applaud them. I don’t know much about them, though. I don’t know much about them because they’re not making the front page of Fast Company. They don’t tend to launch on Tech Crunch.

The ones I know about, the ones with buzz and energy and excitement and soul, they’re the ones who took the plunge and sold their stereo to pay for a bunny suit.