Summary: According to a recent NY Times article, entrepreneurs are finding comfort back in the corporate world, deserting their businesses in the economic downturn. Are you one of them? I don’t know about you, but I’m in it for the long haul.

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I was reading an article from about a week and a half ago on the NY Time site: Economy to Entrepreneurs – Turn Back.The article shares a story about one entrepreneur whose business started to fade when clients started opting to do things for themselves – she made the jump back to the 9-5 lifestyle, and apparently others are too – for the security of it.

Maybe it’s just my “never say die” attitude, but I really don’t think these kinds of folks were worthy of a story to begin with – in my eyes, they’re nothing but entrepreneurial slackers.

Why?

Any good entrepreneur knows that when the needs of your market change, so must your business (and your marketing strategy).

In the primary example in the article, we’re talking about an event management / planning company which seemed to have highly specialized interests. Clients started feeling like it was more cost-effective to deal with things internally.

Oddly, that’s usually not the case – contractors are far more often the cost-effective option over having salaried employees devote time to specialized projects. That’s a selling point I don’t think enough entrepreneurs either understand or know how to convey well to prospective clients.

Rather than work through the tough times and learn how to adapt (by altering her specialty, reaching out to new client bases, or developing a stronger USP), this entrepreneur (and others) called it quits.

So tell me again… why was this a story worthy of being picked up by the NY Times? As far as I’m concerned, it’s not – just people who couldn’t cut it in their game, and the Times is letting the economy serve as scapegoat in an example that’s entirely illogical. Bravo.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on them? Would you quit if things got tough, or do you have the entrepreneurial balls to keep on going, adapting to our everchanging markets rather than expecting your tried and true methods to work indefinitely? I’m sure you can guess which camp I’m in.