The air is riddled with cliches during economic downturns, largely because the purveyors of said cliches are longing to say something encouraging and they don’t have the data to do it.

One of those oft-heard cliches concerns the number of successful (and very large) companies we have today that were started during recessions. Microsoft, Apple and the rest — I don’t have the handy list on me but an impressive number of corporate giants appear to have gotten their start in life during the hard times.

It’s not very often that any of the companies in question is the result of what people have taken to calling “forced” entrepreneurship; that is, small businesses started by people who have been laid off and are unable to find work. A certain percentage of those forced entrepreneurs return to traditional employment when the economy improves and the rest usually choose not to grow beyond micro size.

Among nascent microbusiness owners who are not being “forced,” it might seem counterintuitive to start a business during a downturn when one would assume that customers or clients are even harder than usual to come by.

Which is just one of several very interesting things about Gladys Strickland, owner-operator of Memphis, TN-based GS Business Resources, a virtual assistance firm founded in March 2009.

Gladys started her business right now, in this terrible economic climate, for a series of reasons that will almost certainly make perfect sense to most microbusiness owners, even if they seem inexplicable to many economists and academics.

She wanted “more control over her life and her future,” as she put it during our telephone interview. She likes all the freedoms inherent in working from home and had no guarantees that she would continue to be able to do so working for someone else. She is thinking about moving to a part of the country where the climate agrees with her better, and wanted to be able to do that without the need for job hunting once she got there.

At the same time, Gladys has not yet quit her “day job,” which provides her with a cushion of security while she builds her business. That makes her one of those nonemployer firms that researchers are still researching, the firm started on a part-time basis by an owner who seeks to build it to their full-time occupation and primary source of income.

“It’s the economic reality,” said Gladys when I told her that some in the economic research community believe people like her work their firms part-time because they want to. “I have bills to pay. I’m a single parent, I need health insurance for myself and my son. I don’t have enough savings to live on until I have enough clients to support us both full time.”

It is unfortunate that none of the available data sets on the self-employed or nonemployers (depending on whether you are looking at Census data or BLS data) captures that subset of individuals who are working their firms part-time but would be working them full- time if their revenues would support them and their families.

It’s even more unfortunate that the number of “official” types in government or academia who recognize this particular shortcoming in the government data can, I think, be counted on two hands. Possibly one.

GS Business Resources is brand spanking new and Gladys is primarily focused on building her client base. She intends to focus on microbusinesses and independent contractors, particularly home based business owners. Right now, she says one of her biggest challenges is getting plugged into the networks that will get her the sorts of referrals so many microbusiness service providers depend on for new business.

Her biggest challenge is not even access to health insurance, which is one of the issues that keeps her tied to her day job.

Rather, Gladys says her biggest business challenge right now is that great buggaboo of microbusiness owners everywhere: time management.

“It’s staying focused on what I need to do right now and not getting distracted by email or Twitter or anything like that,” she told me. “Or even my own thoughts, because I’ll get an idea and think, ‘Ooo, I ought to do that.’ And actually what I need to do is make a note to do that later and finish what I’m doing right then.”

I’m sure there are plenty of microbusiness owners who can relate to that.

Gladys is still at the stage of figuring things out, which is only to be expected with a firm that is an infant of only about three months old. The odds seem to me to be very much in her favor, because her most powerful motivation is the preservation of her own freedom.

For example, she enjoys the freedom to take the cell phone and laptop outside to do business and conduct media interviews, the way she did on the day that I talked to her.

“It’s just taking what I’ve got now and making it even better,” she said.

Well said.