Finding Your Next Gig In Your Garage – Part II
It’s darn hard being a glass half-full kind of guy these days. Last March the jobless ranks swelled to 13.2 million, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.5%.
Some of those folks will land on their feet in the same industry. Others will re-invent themselves. And still others will head for … their garages.
Recessions have birthed myriad entrepreneurs. Following is the second in a series in upstate New York who have used bumps in the road as motivation to back out the Buick and set up shop within walking distance of their mailboxes.
Meg Ingraham, 52, Racquette River Rods, Potsdam, N.Y.
A few years ago, while nursing her husband through back surgery and her 90-year-old mother-in-law through a broken ankle, Ingraham noodled the idea of working from home. “I needed a steady income but wanted to do something that I really enjoyed, and do it on my own,” she says. “A number of years ago I was given the chance to learn how to build fishing rods and I loved it. Working with crafts, seeing something growing in my hands and making a living at it was very appealing.”
A year ago the rod maker she worked for went out of business, but a couple of the employees were very interested in opening a new shop. So Ingraham started clearing out the garage.
Since then, every day has been a challenge. “My first order for components was wrong,” she admits. “I bought lots of great stuff [for about $4,100] on closeout thinking I was making a wise investment, but ultimately these parts are not at all what we needed to make the type of rod we had envisioned.” Her biggest mistake: overestimating her business knowledge. “I can build a beautiful, functional and perfect rod, but that’s not enough to run a business,” she says.
To bolster her skills, Ingraham looked for courses in accounting and bookkeeping offered by the four local universities. “I have attended so many classes in the last few months that my head is spinning, but I feel so much better about my ability to tackle the budgeting issues that have been holding me back,” she says. One course, for free, offered by the State University of New York in Canton, provided four hours of basic accounting training, a free copy of QuickBooks and two hours of on-site training.
Thus far, Ingraham has invested $41,150 for renovations to the garage and to purchase machinery and initial components. Of that, $13,000 came from a loan received through the Potsdam Economic Development Office at an interest rate of 2%; the rest, from personal savings. She has yet to break even. “We do a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul but I have learned that it is part of the start-up process,” she says.
For more information, visit forbes.com.