Courtesy of Marty Svoboda; Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
- The Unemployed States of America takes readers deep inside the decimated American workforce.
- Marty Svoboda is a 55-year-old entrepreneur based in Adams, Nebraska.
- When the pandemic hit, Svoboda’s role as a marketer and event planner at his nephew’s company was no longer needed, as business priorities shifted and the nature of group events changed.
- He and his wife have been coping with the stress and anxiety by gardening — the one thing he feels he’s actually had control over.
- This is his story, as told to Nick Dauk.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’ve always been trying to work for myself and do cool projects that have significance. Last year, I moved back home to Nebraska to build a better life for my family after being away for 36 years. I spent 10 years in Costa Rica, most recently as the creative director and managing partner for a tourist magazine, where I started a family.
Unfortunately, the partnership dissolved in September of 2019, but luckily, a new opportunity was right around the corner.
My nephew, Nicholas, owns MAGIS Residential Services, which specializes in precision placements for shared living for the developmentally disabled community. Nicholas hired me to perform marketing services for MAGIS, as well as help him further develop an inspirational speaking venture, “Nicholas Speaks,” whose mission is to “inspire acceptance to go beyond challenges.”
In March, MAGIS put all of their marketing plans on hold and shifted their full budget to supporting the core of their business. With group events not happening anytime soon, all plans for Nicholas Speaks engagements were also halted.
I owned my own company, Sauce Promotions, during the recession of 2008, so I knew that calling new clients for business during the coronavirus pandemic would be useless. Plus, with a kindergartner and a fourth grader now attending school from home, helping them was a full-time job in itself.
Filing for coronavirus unemployment was an acceptable solution, as I knew that it could at least get us to July.
I’ve had to take personal loans from family members and will need to pay them back soon, so I’ve essentially gone into debt without a steady income.
We've tightened our belts. My wife and I started our first vegetable garden, which has helped decrease my grocery bill and manage my anxiety — it's been awesome watching something grow that I've actually had control over. Our dinner plates have been filled with 75% of our own harvest. It's nice knowing that in this time, we can teach our children life lessons and share our crops with neighbors in a small town.
In many ways, this situation is very scary.
It's different from when I was an entrepreneur back in the early 2000s: Now, I have a wife and two kids to worry about. I can't just pack up and go to the next venture, and we simply can't survive on $173 unemployment checks each week. Receiving help from family doesn't make you feel good either; I need to get back to work.
On one hand, I'm optimistic about the future, as MAGIS and Nicholas Speaks plan on hiring me back in some capacity later in the fall, if possible. I'm excited at the thought of becoming part of the solution and optimistic about this opportunity.
On the other hand, no one knows what life will be like months from now. As a Plan B, I'm reviving my old company Sauce Promotions and restarting it as Sauce Creative Agency to provide marketing and business development for clients.
Either way, I'm holding out hope because, in every crisis in life, opportunities are created. You just have to find them or create them yourself.