Melissa Chang of Pure Incubation recently listed five excellent reasons why a recession was a great time to start a company.

But you don't have to wait for a recession. There has never been a better time to start a company than now. Here are nine reasons why you should start a startup:

1. You have a problem with authority. You don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself. Of course you will probably be harder on yourself than anyone. Actually, this isn't exactly a new reason -- can you imagine Steve Jobs working for anyone else?

2. You have a great idea, or a great solution to a problem. Or maybe you don't have an idea, but you have a burning passion that you simply can't contain. Just be open to changes. After all Flickr started life as an online game company.

3. You can do things differently. You can challenge the established rules of business. Want to outsource your development to RentACoder? Go for it.

4. You're young, and your expenses are low. Wait, scratch that. I'm 47 and I'm founding a startup. But the key is having low mortgage costs and an understanding wife. (See "burning passion" above.)

5. The costs are incredibly low. Development tools are free. The other day I created a server and disk space for a startup using Amazon EC2 and S3. My total cost so far? $4.27.

6. There is plenty of support. Events like BarCamp connect you with like-minded people to share ideas and get helpful hints from those who've done it before you. Lots of successful entrepreneurs blog as well, sharing things that made them successful.

7. Venture Capitalists need you. Unlike the old days when you needed their money, they know that you don't anymore -- but they need good startups to keep the deals flowing. They'll even come to you. A couple of months ago VC Rick Segal did a Canadian tour on his own dime to see who's out there.

8. You can change the world. Google made it possible to find whatever you wanted on the web. Blogger gave everyone their own printing press. Twitter allows us to quickly share our thoughts and insights.

9. Because you can. You can start something on a weekend, without even leaving your current job. You can tell yourself how expensive, or time consuming, or difficult it is, but none of those things are true anymore. Ok, it will still be difficult, but so is anything really worthwhile.

Twenty years ago starting a company required substantial capital. You needed PCs, servers, space for people to work, and especially a demo room so that customers could visit and see exactly what your products do. Even during the dot-com boom a few years ago burn rates of $1 million per month were common.

Today people work on their personal machines wherever they are, connecting with each other via email or Skype. Servers and storage exist in a cloud, for the price of a cup of coffee a day -- and scalability is an afterthought. And the Internet is your nearly free demo room and sales/distribution channel. If you have a credit card, you're on your way.

So what are you waiting for?

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable, yet often entertaining thoughts you can read his blog at larryborsato.com.