Despite the COVID-19 pandemic – or perhaps because of it – business starts jumped to a record high in the first half of 2021, according to filings with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office.
“People who have been displaced are thinking that if they were ever going to do this, maybe now is the time,” said Lynn Chesnutt, managing director of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center in Chattanooga. “If there is any silver lining in what we’ve been through, we are seeing much more intentionality in what people are doing, and they are willing to do more to be successful.”
Montrell Besley has always had an entrepreneurial streak, and he started mobile arcade Rolling Video Games in May, when it looked as if the pandemic would soon relent.
“I dove right in, head first, because I knew the market was going to go crazy because people had been stuck in the house for an entire year,” he said.
A crisis like the pandemic tends to spur action in people who may have been considering entrepreneurship, Besley said.