Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Owning my own business has been one of two things that I have wanted to do with my life (the other has been having a family which I’m still working on as well.) but would this be a good time to open one? I have some ideas, but the economy in this country seems to be terrible at the moment, with businesses going belly up, people losing their jobs, homes etc. In my mind I keep thinking that if I open the right business and things get going I could help provide a solution to the problem and maybe create some jobs, putting some good people back to work in the process and helping to get the economy back on track.
I do have some experience if you can call it that working with various online and offline network and affiliate marketing companies. But at the end of the day I was merely a self employed, commission salesman/sales manager. Many of these companies have even started to go belly up which is why I am exploring other options at the moment.