Jobless opt for entrepreneurship over job hunting

McClatchy Newspapers

Clara Mateus, a graphic designer, arrived home from work in tears. Just a few months after she was named employee of the year, her boss at a Florida bank announced her department would be eliminated and told her she no longer had a job. Seeing his wife distraught, Allen Borza spent the evening giving her a pep talk.

But the next day, Borza, also a graphic designer, was laid off from his job at a landscape-architecture firm.

Instead of completely flipping out, Borza said, “I told Clara, this is opportunity knocking.”

With unemployment in the double digits in Florida, the two opted for entrepreneurship over job hunting. They formed their own firm and chose to tap the green movement by marketing themselves as eco-conscious graphic designers. Call them entrepreneurs by necessity; they represent a new wave of unemployed workers who find the optimal way to earn income is to form their own business. But the path becomes particularly risky when both household contributors pursue entrepreneurship at the same time.

But it was the push Borza and his wife needed. Otherwise, he said, “I don’t think we ever would have jumped out of our comfort zone to do this.”

The Kauffman Foundation reports interest in entrepreneurship is strong. One in four workers who have not found jobs are considering launching a business, a CareerBuilder.com survey says. The challenge is navigating the credit crisis to obtain start-up funds and having financial staying power.

Kauffman Foundation economist Tim Kane said he expects the trend of entrepreneurs by necessity to continue at least through 2010.

Though more people started businesses in 2008 compared with 2007, an even larger number closed, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. That means many of those launching ventures that aren’t well- capitalized likely will fail within months as they struggle to raise hard-to-find cash.

But there are encouraging signs, too. More than half of the companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market.

Newlyweds, Mateus and Borza hope to be that fortunate. The two originally formed the Green Group Studio a year ago as a way to earn side income to repay wedding debts. The project work offered them a creative outlet from their day jobs, they say.

Starting a business as a couple after layoffs can add stress to stress, said Irma Becerra-Fernandez, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University.

A bit of advice she gives all new entrepreneurs is to stick to what they know, just as Mateus and Borza have done.