Fired. Laid off. Let go. Downsized. The words reek of loss. But losing a job can also be the catalyst for gaining a new career. It can be the push that propels people to stretch and grow. It can be the spark that starts an entrepreneurial fire. For some, a job loss is an opportunity to become the boss.

Carrie Magruder saw her department of 22 at Sprint dwindle to two, then to zero. At first she looked for another marketing job, but Magruder realized she craved a change after she felt only relief when a position for which she’d interviewed had been dissolved.

“I felt like that was an epiphany for me—that maybe this was my opportunity to do something that was more fulfilling,” she says. The mother of two small boys, she also wanted to travel less, so she researched potential careers and went back to school to become a massage therapist, opening The BrickHouse Massage & Coffee Bar in 2004.

“I decided to go do something more family friendly and satisfying for me,” she says.

Family needs also prompted Jennifer Ferrero to consider consulting when she got laid off from her corporate-communications job at Liberty Lake-based Telect Inc. in 2001.

“I knew that I wanted to be self-employed because I was working so many hours,” Ferrero says. “I knew, for my family, self-employment was a better solution.”

One consulting job led to another, and Ferrero quickly joined forces with a former colleague, Tony DeStefano, to form Spokane Web Communications Inc. What started as a side business for him and a part-time business for her turned into full-time work for both, largely through referrals and networking. They now have a staff of four and expect growth to continue.

Networking was also instrumental for Marjoni Marketing Inc. co-owners John Guarisco and Mary Thompson, who lost their jobs on the same day in 2005—though from different companies. The two had worked together before and were friends. They met that fateful day for coffee and by the next were business partners.

Both had toyed with starting their own marketing businesses, Guarisco says, but “just never had the courage or guts to do it.”

In office space provided by one of Guarisco’s contacts, they hit the phones and gained six clients the first day. As word spread, Marjoni’s client base grew.

“You network, and you have relationships,” Thompson says. “People knew me. People called and said, ‘We heard you got fired. Get up here, and sign us up.’”

Of course, even with immediate clients, it takes time for a business to be profitable. Guarisco and Thompson went several months without any income. Even now, they make far less than at their previous jobs.

“I have even more respect for the business owner and how hard it is to squeeze dollars,” Thompson admits.