Opening a New Business in a Recession

SAVANNAH, Ga.—To many of us, opening a business in a bad economy seems like a scary thought. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced plans to reinvigorate the U.S. economy and create jobs.

The President’s proposal includes more money for infrastructure projects, tax cuts, and credit access for small businesses. It also includes rebates to consumers who make their homes more energy efficient.

One Savannah business hopes the government will do more to help local businesses succeed.

Many of us probably think of knitting as something our grandmothers do—but it’s made a comeback as the economy turned south.

Unwind Yarn and Gifts opened in August, catering to a growing clientele of folks interested in the fiber arts.

“People recently have really come back to the idea of buying local and shopping local,“ said Unwind co-owner Leigh Heil.

Heil said the response to the store has been better than expected. “We probably looked at opening something you know for several months or a year before we did, and we had the usual fears and trepidations especially with the way the economy was going, and we finally just decided to take the plunge,“ she said.

She said some might question their timing but said they did their research.

“We knew our market and we knew our customers. We were very conscious of having product for all price ranges available.“

She believes encouraging small business benefits every community and hopes whatever the government plans to do will help.

“Anything that helps small business is going to be terrific for the economy, because just in the time that we were researching this and the time that we’ve been open, there’s small businesses all over that are really hands on right in the community and that makes a direct effect locally.“

Unwind holds free classes to help you get started with knitting: all you have to pay for is your materials. Heil said their classes are always full.

As for President Obama’s proposal, it still needs to get through Congress, and there’s no word yet on how much these efforts might cost.