Small Biz

Accidental Entrepreneurs

Jerome Boykin Jr.

JB Sweeping, Houma, La.
Founded: 2006
Employees: 8
Revenue: $570,000 (2007)

Hurricane Katrina derailed Jerome Boykin Jr.'s plan get his master's after finishing college at Southern University at New Orleans, and he spent most of that fall on his parents' couch instead. His father pushed him to get work cleaning Wal-Mart (WMT) parking lots, but Boykin resisted the idea—until a store manager offered him a $3,500 monthly cleaning contract.

Now 25, Boykin owns three sweeping trucks and his company, JB Sweeping, and cleans lots at big-box stores and malls in Houma, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. Says Boykin: "When Katrina came, I had to take another turn. I just didn't know that my next turn would be to start my own business and that it would be so successful."