Put your entrepreneurial spirit to work with a side job

Meet Sara Polon.  She didn’t plan a career in soup, but like so many others in this economy, she had to get creative.

“I was working in the travel business, middle eastern travel.  I was afraid I was going to make less than half of what I made the year before but work just as hard,“ says Polon.

So when her friends suggested she put her entrepreneurial spirit to work, a new career was born.

She says, “I started thinking, ‘I want to do something new.  I want to get involved in this local food movement.  It’s really popular here in DC.  People aren’t eating out as much, they’re eating home, they’re eating healthfully.  So the wheels started turning.“

Her soups are made fresh from local ingredients and packaged in this Cleveland Park restaurant.  She hires friends to make door to door deliveries.

“Our soups are pretty funky.  There’s not the kind of soup you’re going to get anywhere else in the city.  This week, we have a lentil apricot soup, most of our customers have never had that.  Last week we had an indian spice hmong bean soup.  Most people didn’t even know what hmong beans were,“ says Polon.

They do now.  The Small Business Association says Sara is in good company.  There are 6 million more small businesses than there were six years ago in the United States.

Neil McKinnon started one of those businesses last year to make extra money.

“While I was working as an insurance adjuster, I started Posh Photo Booth rental part time just as a way to make some extra money so me and my wife could start a family, buy a house, and live a little better,“ he says.

But when he was laid off in October, his side job became his only job.

“Fortunately for me, the business was doing pretty well even though it was a rough economy at the time.  I was able to keep doing photo booth rental in DC, and we were able to book a lot more events than I thought we ever would,“ says Neil.

Starting your own business can be intimidating, but Neil thinks it’s a great time to break out of the box.

He says, “There’s so much stuff out there between the Small Business Association and the Community Business Development Centers that are outside of DC and Virginia that really help people.  And as long as you have the time and the energy and a lot, a lot of belief in yourself you can do just about anything.“