Employees By Day, Entrepreneurs By Night

From TMC.net

An auto mechanic owns a tool retailer.

A secretary owns a party supply rental business.

These Orange County residents are among millions of Americans who are both employees and entrepreneurs. More than half of all businesses start at home, and Home Business magazine estimates that three-fourths of them begin as part-time endeavors.

The owners sacrifice free time, and not just for the money. They want to have a low-risk run at entrepreneurship, set up a business for retirement or have other personal goals.

Jason Page started Page Auto Supply as an online store selling tools on eBay in 2004 “because I don’t want to be a mechanic anymore.” The site grosses $25,000 a month, enough to allow Page’s wife, Joni, to quit her job as an animal control officer in Santa Ana to handle the business. When the site makes $10,000 a month in profits, Page says he will quit his job at J&S Automotive in Costa Mesa.

“I’ve always wanted to own a business. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says.

Irvine safety inspector Bill Moore also has an eBay store selling military-themed T-shirts and related products called Milstuff4U. He retires in less than four years and wants to build the business for extra income in retirement.

“I don’t want to sit idle,” he says. “I can work at it as hard as I want, and when I don’t want to do it anymore, I can turn it over to my daughter and son-in-law.”

The extra income of a side business is nice, says Norma Prado, a secretary at Refugio Para Nios in Orange, who runs Norma’s Party Rentals in Santa Ana on the weekends.

“I’m a single mom with three kids; I have to make ends meet.”

But she has another motivation for the part-time business she chose to start.

“I want to keep my kids busy and out of trouble. They spend several hours a week cleaning the jumpers (inflatable playgrounds for children), tables and chairs, and they help me deliver and pick up on the weekends,” Prado says. “When my son gets his driver’s license, he can do his own route.”

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