For the past few months, the Alabama Public Radio news team has been looking into why educated and skilled workers are leaving the Gulf coast for other parts of the country. We call our series “Should I stay or should I go?” Some of our coverage has focused on strategies to keep workers here. Today, we’re looking at a solution from the Alabama Small Business Development Center that may have been sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is credited with a surge in small business startups which needed new workers. Here’s a few of those small businesses formed in south Alabama.
Data from the U.S. Census bureau says the demand for business licenses in 2021 rose twenty six percent in Baldwin County and twenty two percent in Mobile. Local experts say that demand hasn’t slowed down.
“Technology companies, restaurants, and caterers. Real estate was a big thing,” said Mel Washington, the regional manager for the Alabama Small Business Development Center.
“Graphic designers, wedding planners. I could keep going on,” he said.
Washington says Alabama was one of the leading states for business startups last year. Over half of the sixty or so business startups in fiscal 2021 year were launched by women. Growing economic development through small business is why Washington left a successful career in New York City and returned home to Mobile. Going into 2023, his office hasn’t slowed down yet.
“You never know what tomorrow holds,” said Derrick Scott. Washington also helped him create a business plan for his new invention the EZ Turn Bar. Driving to work was simpler during the pandemic. That gave Scott more time to think. He imagined a bar that would let him drive his new zero-turn mower with one hand and drink coffee with the other. He put that idea into motion after seeing family members get sick and even die from COVID.
“It is less about making a bazillion dollars and more about expressing my creativity and being a person who can make something and have it be important for other people. It would be great if the creation was not only transformational, but novel and new. Something that no one had thought of before,” Scott said.
“There was a significant uptick in business licenses across the board towards the end of 2020 and into 2021,” said Casey Williams. She’s President of the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce.
“And we also had a lot of folks coming into the chamber asking questions about startup businesses,” she observed.
Williams says many new small businesses on the Eastern Shore succeeded by being nimble.
“I felt like in the pandemic, people were starting to robotically go through daily life. It wasn't okay to look at each other anymore. You didn't want to make eye contact,” said Alex Pikul.
One of those is the Kind Cafe in Fairhope. Owner Alex Pikul was working a sales job in Dallas when he noticed COVID was changing the mood of people around him.
“You certainly weren't smiling, especially if you had a face mask on. Typically everybody starts their day with coffee and some breakfast food like a bagel,” said Pikul. “I wondered if there was an opportunity for us to put something together where people start their day, and you're inspiring them to take kindness out into the world. You're just saying hello and smiling at them, and it could potentially change their day the rest of the day.
Alex quit his job and moved home to Fairhope. He opened the Kind Cafe in November 2021 and found his purpose.
“The pandemic was hard on everyone, but it gave me an opportunity to reflect on what I wanted in my own life. I'm very thankful for that because, I feel like I live a much more purpose-driven life and focusing on the community and trying to find ways for us to give back as a business, but also trying to help our customers become more aware of how they can give back in their community as well,” he said.
Dr. Wendy Clanton was a teacher and assistant principal in the Mobile County Public School System for 23 years. Her life was dedicated to students and helping the underdog. Now, her focus is the perfect hotdog. Clanton researched small businesses and found that a hot dog stand would be flexible and easy. She named it Lil Red’s Cart after her youngest daughter’s red hair and says her Ph.D. now stands for “professional hot dogger.”
“Primarily the purpose was to interact and to help students who had become disconnected as a result of Covid,” she said. “Now I'm able to reconnect with kids that I lost contact with and build new relationships. I can help guide and support them the way I would if I were still working in the school. It's just not a part of the school system anymore. It gives me more freedom to be able to do what I know is the right thing, because what's always right is not always popular, and what's always popular is not always right. But in this situation, because I've got control of my time and I'm able to act accordingly. I'm able to be more uniquely involved.”
Start-ups are an important source of job growth, innovation and economic resiliency. After the last few years of crisis, an unexpected surge in local entrepreneurship is good news for keeping jobs and businesses on the Gulf Coast.
