Having already been furloughed by a boss in the twilight of his career and a global pandemic wreaking havoc, Jaime O’Neill started to mull his future.

“I had a third child on the way in July [2020], and I was not in a place to be unemployed,” he said. The unemployment rate in New York state had ballooned to 16% at that time, the highest rate on record since the 1930s, according to statistics from the state Labor Department. Nationally, unemployment was also record-breaking—peaking at 14.7% in April 2020.

A vice president with Sid Paterson Advertising in Manhattan, O’Neill, 42, had been working remotely since March when Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, in an unprecedented move shut down the entire state to all non-essential personnel as the coronavirus began rapidly spreading across New York, and would soon engulf the entire country.

He started to question his job security with his boss celebrating his 80th birthday and contemplating retirement amidst fears of the pandemic.

With no succession plan in place, O’Neill began having conversations with his father, Bob O’Neill, an experienced business development consultant, and some of his own clients. And, after an advertising career spanning nearly 20 years, he took a leap of faith and launched On a Dime Marketing, a boutique ad agency, on Aug. 2, 2020 from his home office in Harrison.

“The day my son was born, July 23, I received confirmation from two of my larger clients that they would follow me to my new agency,” he said.

The timing couldn’t have been better, as most of Paterson’s remaining staff was let go on the last Friday in July, and the company would close its doors for good shortly after.

O’Neill wasn’t the only one with the entrepreneurial itch, however.

Despite the coronavirus and record joblessness, there was a boom in 2020—a 13-year high—in the number of people starting new businesses. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 4.4 million new business applications were filed nationwide last year, a 26.9% increase over 2019.

But the uptick in numbers isn’t that much of a shock, actually.

“They don’t come as a surprise, “ said Deborah Novick, Westchester County’s director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “I can tell you that… in periods of great disruption like this, that people do start businesses. People either revisit priorities or shift priorities and make a big change.”

In fact, if it wasn’t for COVID-19, O’Neill says he probably would have stuck it out at Sid Paterson. “The pandemic gave me the kick in the butt I needed … to step back and say ‘what is the next chapter in my life,’” he said.

John Ravitz, executive vice president of the Westchester Business Council, attributed the growth in new startups to several factors: people having more free time, out of work because of the pandemic, unsatisfied with their current situation or in the process of developing new business plans that were previously put on hold.

And with an estimated 40% of Westchester residents working outside their home county, the pandemic also provided a bit of a paradigm shift. As many residents were home more working remotely or unemployed, it gave county officials an opportunity to sell Westchester to prospective entrepreneurs.

With funding from the federal government provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, CARES Act, Westchester rolled out the Launch1000 program in October 2020, as an initiative of its pro-business recovery plan. Created in response to the pandemic, Launch1000 was designed to recruit 1,000 county residents as a no cost, fully remote 4-month program to alter their financial situations by turning ideas into full business startups through the use of workshops, mentoring and access to small grants.

“People have been scrambling,” Novick said. “We saw all those factors affect people’s ability to earn a living and wanted to provide some resources as they made those shifts.”

The county has only enrolled 425 people into the program, to date, but is still accepting applications. Novick thinks they will eventually reach 1,000 entrepreneurs.

Participants of the program range in age from 18-69 and come from all corners of the county.

“We understand the economic difficulties that businesses are going through. Businesses are suffering,” said Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat. “The pandemic has significantly impacted the ways people work and Launch1000 is an opportunity for people to write their next chapter.”

Danielle Kelly, 36, was also faced with uncertainty when her dental office in Yonkers closed last March. As a dental assistant, Kelly’s profession was considered a high risk for exposure to COVID-19. So she began collecting unemployment, not knowing when she would return to work. Without the ability to work remotely, it gave her some unexpected down time.

Growing up, she had always wanted to open her own bakery.

“I’ve always wanted to do something with baking since I was a kid because my uncle was a baker,” she said. “I was always told that I could bake really well.”

So she started Dani Kakes, making customized hot chocolate bombs and breakable chocolates out of her New Rochelle home. She offers them in customizable designs for any occasion.

“I want it to be a dessert business, but as of right now I’m just doing varieties of chocolates,” she said. “ Then I want to expand into other baked goods.”

Her breakable chocolates, which are suitable for both kids and adults, come in a variety of sizes with specially designed mini-hammers that crack open the chocolates to reveal candies like gummy bears, Sour Patch Kids, Skittles or M&M’s inside. There’s also the option to have a note set inside the chocolate for special occasions like Valentine’s Day, she said.

“The design is what’s going to make it different, I hope,” Kelly added. “I thought it was a really cute idea.”

For now, Dani Kakes utilizes social media to generate exposure; a website is next on her to-do list. “This is a bit of a dream,” she said. “Right now, I’m a startup so I want to see if there is enough interest in it. I’ve just never had the time needed to commit to it.”

As vaccine distribution ramps out in the coming months, public health officials expect things to improve enough to further reopen the economy. There’s cautious optimism that a majority of the country will be inoculated against the coronavirus by July or August. But even if that scenario plays out, Ravitz believes the devastating effects seen on businesses will take much longer to address. “We have to be diligent … in the coming months and years,” he said. “We are in such uncharted waters. This is not going to be an overnight fix.”

O’Neill has had to deal with clients who’ve cut their advertising budgets by 50% as a result of the coronavirus, calling it his biggest hurdle since launching his business. “It’s definitely not optimal,” he said. “But I was able to structure the company as lean as possible, so if things didn’t get better we could still function.”

Hiring five employees right out of the gate and managing On a Dime 100% remote, he began the operation by managing 25 clients—Stoler Auto Group and Bram Auto Group are some of his largest. With the world of advertising having undertaken an unexpected evolution over the last year, O’Neill thinks he could stay a remote business even if normalcy resumes.

“I think it has made us more efficient,” he said. “It’s made my life easer. I never thought you needed that brick and mortar expense, it’s an ego thing, especially in Manhattan.”

 

CONTACT: chris@hometwn.com