by Caitlin Kenney

Jason R. from New Jersey writes:

My brother in law, my cousin and I all just lost our jobs. I saw this coming from miles away so laid the groundwork for my own business, but I was surprised to find that even if you aren't selling anything yet, you cannot collect unemployment if you just started your own company

The company that I work for has been in the video business for a decade, and the founders were in another business for another decade before that. The landscape is changing very quickly, and video distributors (the companies that sell our products) are failing (or hurting) everywhere. A major international distributor filed for administration (the UK equivalent of bankruptcy), and it just piled on what what already an ugly situation. The industry is small enough that I still hope to work with them in other ways, but I also need to focus on my career and the financial security of my family.

 

So in regards to my business, my lack of distribution is almost more of an asset than a curse in this environment — but I don't expect it to always be this way. My plan is to sell directly into most of the major web channels, and perhaps work with a small group of independent sales representatives. When the dust settles, I plan to look at who is left standing, what they might have compromised in order to still be standing, and build relationships from there. It's actually very consistent with what I did with my 401K. The situation looks grim, so lay low, find a calm port in a storm and try to build something new.

I think that, especially in a jobless recovery, the government should be willing to extend unemployment insurance, or something under a different name, to people who determine that they might be more successful starting their own business. Otherwise, there's this math that you do in your head (I do, anyway) where you say, "ok, I'm launching a business, and it might take X months before I start to see a steady stream of sales, so why don't I just wait 9 months and launch next year, during the busy Christmas season." It seems that since a lot of jobs are not coming back quickly enough, a great way to stimulate the economy would be to focus on people who decide to start their own businesses

We're collecting your stories about unemployment today. If you have one to share, email us at planetmoney@npr.org.