Late bloomers: like millions of other Americans, Bobby Jones was over 50 when he started his own business

Home Office Computing, August, 1993 by Timothy Middleton

Like millions of other Americans, Bobby Jones was over 50 when he started his own business

A droll man with callused hands and a voice softened by the cadences of the rural South, Bobby Jones was working at a textile mill in Floyd County, Virginia, when a mid-life crisis seized him. "He was stuck in a factory job, but he's really an entrepreneur," says his wife, Lora. "He likes to make changes. Now, with his own business, he's able to do that."

Jones, 55, quit his job as a factory worker nearly four years ago and moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to start his own landscaping business. Now, the late-starting entrepreneur has more clients than he can handle.

There are a lot of people in America like Jones, proving that you don't have to be a young hotshot out of business school or an aggressive 40-year-old professional to start a home business. Older Americans are far more likely to work at home than younger people. In 1992, 16 percent of people over 55 were self-employed, compared with 8.5 percent for the general population, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many older Americans have no choice. They have been forced into early retirement due to corporate downsizing. But many others prefer to keep working, even though they could afford to retire. With a national trend toward people retiring in their 50s, rather than 60s, some not-so-senior citizens find they don't want to remain idle. Women, especially, find that retirement brings "one-half the income and two times the husband," says Saralee Rosenberg, coauthor of 50 Fabulous Places to Retire in America.

With fully one-third of today's youthful retirees going back to some form of work, according to Rosenberg, people over 50 are asking themselves, "What does it take to start a new business?" The answer is, it takes everything required for anyone else: discipline, hard work, a sound idea and the management skills to execute it, adequate capitalization, good bookkeeping, and careful planning. But older Americans face special challenges, too--what HOME OFFICE COMPUTING contributing editor and work-at-home expert Paul Edwards calls the "attitudinal, psychological, and physical" burdens that come with age.

"I think people over 50 are probably better equipped from the point of view of experience to start a business," Edwards says, "but on the other hand, they may be less flexible, more rigid in terms of what they've learned."

Devoid of formal business training, Jones has broken a lot of rules while establishing his small company in Corolla, North Carolina. He has also made his share of shrewd decisions; by using common sense, he's been able to offer needed services and to make sure his customers are happy. But already he's facing growth problems. His experience may help aspiring entrepreneurs decide whether they want to start a business in their retirement.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

As children, Jones had vacationed on the Outer Banks, and Lora's sister lived in fast-growing Currituck County, 100 miles north of Cape Hatteras on the same spit of land. Eighty miles from the nearest city, Corolla is a summer colony of expensive oceanfront homes developed after 1984, without a single lawn-maintenance company to service them. Jones's vision crystallized: Using the skills he first developed as a boy cutting his neighbors' grass and tools he already owned, he would start a lawn-maintenance company.

The Joneses got a bargain on a rented house in Corolla, sold their Virginia property to a neighbor, and in 1990, hung out their shingle. Three years later, Corolla Landscaping has grown to include the Corolla Lawn & Garden Center, which began in 1992 with 800 square feet in the Corolla Light Village Shops but has expanded to 1,600. The Joneses live over the store in an apartment that is still the headquarters of the landscaping business.

As a factory worker, Jones was earning $15,000 a year; his new business grossed $29,000 in the first year and $80,000 in the second. Last year the combined businesses grossed more than $100,000. Jones's stepson has become a full-time employee, and the business employs one other full-time worker and one part-timer.

WHAT'S GONE RIGHT

Marketing for Jones's primary business, lawn maintenance and landscaping, has been targeted and effective. From the Currituck County courthouse he gets lists of building permits and sends homemade brochures to property owners and developers. His first mailing of 400 produced a dozen leads in one month. By his second spring, he had 50 regular customers, and by the third, there were 80. Jones guarantees the quality of his service--personally. His clients include the strip shopping center where he's headquartered--a subtle form of advertising that by itself has brought in business.

After two years of handling his accounts with paper and pencil, last fall Jones purchased a 486 computer system from another merchant in the shopping center. Although it's used now mainly for accounts, it can be linked to the retail shop's cash registers to track inventory as well as sales.