ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

Monday is Doing Business In Your Bathrobe Day, a "holiday" that's been celebrated for the past seven years. And if the layoffs keep coming, we're likely to see more people switching from pumps to fuzzy slippers as they launch home-based businesses.

Doing Business In Your Bathrobe Day is winding down for some folks, but for many, it's not just one day a year -- as layoffs continue and competition increases for the remaining jobs, people are taking advantage of the downtime to pursue the American Dream of starting their own business. And while plenty of these new companies will rent a separate office or retail space, other entrepreneurs will take advantage of the low overhead having a home-based office offers.

"Forced entrepreneurship" can be bittersweet. It can get you out of a dead-end job or one that you simply dreaded waking up for, but it also lands you in the unemployment line with hundreds of others in the same boat. Because starting a business isn't as simple as having a good idea -- it can take months to sort out the legal paperwork and develop a business plan, and even once your business is up and running, you likely won't turn a profit right away. If you're not sure about making that step, take this quiz to see if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

If you do have the start-up smarts yet lack an idea, check out Internet entrepreneur Han Hoekstra's brand-new Web site that focuses on online business opportunities, or Darryl Kimball's blog, which offers business tips for home-based workers and explains how to find a work-life balance. There's also BetterNetworker.com, a social-networking site for home-based business owners that features articles, podcasts, forums, and groups.

And, of course, there are the promoters of Doing Business In Your Bathrobe Day, WebMomz.com, which is a site for women who chose to work from home in order to seek balance with life and employment.

In addition to the home-office boom we may see in the near future, people in general are telecommuting in increasing numbers, whether it's because they got used to it when gas was still very expensive or because offices are streamlining their space. And, of course, there are the people who took up the issue of telecommuting with their employers and requested a flex schedule in order to care for their children or other family members.

The increasing releases of smartphones and laptops -- whose sales are expected to exceed those of desktop computers this year -- make it a lot easier for even non-tech-savvy people to work from home. In fact, a brilliant idea for a start-up business could be something that caters to the home-based worker.

In this economic crisis, the bathrobe could be the new power suit.

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