It's Showtime

Becoming self-employed can be scary, but it still beats being unemployed-just ask David Cobleigh.

Cobleigh spent 17 years with BMW of North America, where he headed the western regional credit department, before he was let go in December 1990. BMW wanted to centralize operations at its headquarters in upstate New Jersey, a move the California-based Cobleigh didn't want to make.

Today, he's back in the driver's seat, owner of an AIM Mail Center franchise in San Dimas, California. But the road to entrepreneurship was long and bumpy.

Cobleigh, 57, was unable to find another job for more than four years, with one interviewer after another telling him his previous salary was too high. He even took $6-an-hour temporary jobs in credit departments to prove he was willing to work for less money, but he still got no offers.

Then one interviewer finally told him what Cobleigh believed was the real reason he couldn't find work: He was over 50. "The upsetting thing was that the guy saying it to me was my age," he says.

In 1993, Cobleigh attended an Entrepreneur Magazine Small Business Expo in Los Angeles, where he talked to representatives from AIM Mail Centers. He was intrigued by the concept, but still uncertain about working for himself, so he decided to keep looking for a job. In 1994, however, Cobleigh returned to the show and explored franchising more seriously.

"I knew I didn't want to get into food service. It's too hectic, with too many employees," says Cobleigh, explaining why he chose a postal service center franchise. "I didn't want the hectic seven-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day kind of thing. At this point in my life, I wanted something low-key."

Of course, opening his franchise in May 1995 was anything but. "There were boxes of merchandise everywhere; it was like Christmas," he recalls. And that feeling of excitement hasn't faded: At press time, the holidays were approaching and Cobleigh was revving up for his busiest season.

Though he's still getting used to the challenges of business ownership, Cobleigh is happy with his choice. "It's a constant adjustment-the mental processes you go through are phenomenal-but I love it," he says. "I really feel this was meant to be." -Holly Celeste Fisk

This article was originally published in the February 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: It's Showtime.