Launching a business is rarely convenient. And with bank accounts still hurting from the financial meltdown of 2008, it may seem illogical to many to make the risky commitment required to start a company. However, in the ashes of economic disaster, opportunities are arising. Today a slew of entrepreneurs are emerging with great ideas in hand, and hungry investors chasing closely behind.

Here are six reasons why right now is a great time to start a company:

1) The Investment Climate Is Entrepreneur-Friendly It's no secret that startup valuations — the worth of new companies in investors' eyes — are up. Where relatively green businesses were getting $2 million valuations six years ago, they're getting $4 or $5 million today. What that means for your business is if you're taking investment, you'll end up giving away less of your company in exchange for the same amount of money to fuel your growth. What better incentive can a startup founder have than that?

2) Startup Accelerators Are Popping Up Everywhere Startup overhead costs like desk space and lunch money often prohibit great people from building companies out of very viable ideas. However, in the last few years, accelerator programs have cropped up all over the place. They're not only helping startups survive during their formative months, but they're also providing mentorship from experienced businesspeople and investors. YCombinator and TechStars are two of the most famous web startup accelerators, but programs exist in nearly every major US city, in industries as diverse as green-tech, medical, consumer web, and consumer products.

3) It's Relatively Inexpensive To Build A Product Right Now If you wanted to build a website or online community, you used to have to buy servers and hire a full-time system administrator just to get the words 'Hello world' up on a website. Now, cloud-based services like Heroku and Amazon Web Services allow you access to the same resources with the click of a mouse.

Lower overhead costs are not just a boon for web-based businesses; the web has played a crucial role in lowering costs for traditional businesses as well. For example: want to sell your own clothing line? You can access low-cost textile resources overseas in minutes, whereas a decade ago such relationships required an airplane, a translator, and a lot of networking.

4) Niche Communities Are Growing Sites like Meetup.com have helped people with similar passions organize themselves and get together offline. From the thriving New York Tech Meetup to the Okaloosa Knitting Club, you can find your niche online, and then network with like-minded folks, with relative ease. Communities are great for networking for sales, business and product development, and support, something every entrepreneur can use a lot of.

5) Resources Are Easy And Cheap To Get Having a mentor to teach you the best practices of business can be invaluable. With the explosion of content on the Internet, from blogs to wikis to communities like Quora and Twitter, it's become easier to access the wisdom of top thinkers in almost any industry.

Additionally, the tools required to run a business — from accounting and bookkeeping to sales management to customer support and phone systems — are all available in inexpensive forms online. Outright, Mint, Salesforce, Zendesk, and our own Grasshopper are examples of frictionless online solutions to the above tasks.

There's no question, today's entrepreneurial climate makes it a great time to create a startup. But that doesn't mean building a company will be easy. Success is a product of hard work, great people, and a little bit of luck. The biggest difference between now and five or ten years ago is that today's entrepreneurial success is much, much less expensive to obtain.