Business Opportunities Weblog

July 10, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 5 Comments

The New York Times:

You, too, can be an entrepreneur. Many of them are part of the first wave of America’s 76 million baby boomers who are taking early retirement and turning their hobbies into small businesses. Very small businesses.

They say their microbusinesses are a way to give focus to a favorite pastime, get more zest out of life and make a little money. The best part is they do not care if the ventures fail.

Carl Boast, owner of Peaceable Kingdom Photos in Moneta, Va., was making a hefty salary in New Jersey as a neuroscientist in the pharmaceutical industry when he decided he “wasn’t a fan of working for a living” and began plotting his departure.

Against the advice of his financial adviser, who worried about how much money he was letting slip away, he quit his job five years ago at age 55 and moved to a five-acre property on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia that now includes a 2,700-square-foot home, a guesthouse, a pontoon boat, a canoe, a tandem kayak, three single kayaks, two one-person sailboats and a jet ski.

He says he is too busy hiking, boating, reading, writing songs and traveling to fit the definition of an entrepreneur. “I’ve put very little effort into marketing,” he said. “I’m not out to make money or change the world.” He has created a Web site, he says, but it is “buried in Earthlink somewhere” and is out of date.

What really motivates him, he said, is “sharing my pictures to convey the idea, ‘Wasn’t this a neat moment?’

“Somebody paid me $12 for an 8-by-10 photo of a squirrel,” he said. “I way underpriced the photo, but still. It was such a rush, actually selling what I had produced, instead of giving it away. Over two days, I made $200. Since then, I’ve given this woman several other squirrel photos.”

Read more.

Photo by Don Petersen.

In Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Tags: Baby Boomers, Niche, Retirement