Amazing! Man Builds Business with a Box of Junk!

Believe it or not my business was started with a box of junk. I run a Copywriting and Marketing consulting business and also a business software company. My online presence and really my entire business was all created from a box of electronics junk... I had been hauling around a box full of ancient electron tubes (for you younger readers tubes were used in all the electronics from the early 70's and going back before they were replaced with transistors and later integrated circuits.) These tubes had been thrown out by the Army when they were cleaning out their inventories, but the tubes were essentially all "brand new" unused and still in the original boxes. I did some experimenting at the time with some of them, but for the most part this box kicked around the house. Then recently I wanted to start my own business to supplement and eventually replace my income. How does one start a business? Well I looked online and bought some books, went to the library, etc. I found a business I wanted to pursue and really began to research it. What I found was that there are 2 camps:

1.) The "You need a lot of money saved up front if you want to start this business..." camp, and

2.) The "You don't need anything but our system and just sit back and watch the money roll in" camp.

Lets cut the crap: You do need some money for at least the bare essentials, but is it possible to create a business with just a few hundred or thousand dollars and make it work? On the other hand, there is no "system" out there that can generate tons of cash while you sit back and let it run on autopilot. I don't care what anyone says, there is no such system, and no actual proof of such a system working. If you buy into that hype you will get the deserved moniker of "Sucker" because that is what you will be. Back to the question: Can you create, with just a few dollars, a real business? I believe you can. I took that box of junk tubes and auctioned them on the Internet along with some other stuff around the house I did not need. I used the money to buy books, and other small essentials for the business such as domain names and a 2 year contract for my ISP. All without touching my other income from my "real job" which is for my family to live on. As for software, I just started collecting free stuff and finding ways to make it work together. The fact is if you know what you are doing (and 22 years as a professional Software engineer helps me here) you can put together everything you need by finding free software and building the few other items you need. It can be done, check my site for the proof. I have what some businesses pay tens of thousands of dollars for, and it cost me almost nothing. Here is a list of the kinds of things you can find software to do (remember sometimes it takes several items put together to get this all to work). This is all LEGAL software I would never advise EVER using illegal, pirated, or otherwise stolen software. It is not worth it because you can be sued an legally lose your business and perhaps much more! You can even go to jail..just not worth it! So without further ado here is a partial list: Web site creation Web site templates Flash component creation (Wow!) Audio on your page Audio books, reports, etc. Flash Audio Button makers Video creation Video books, etc. Blogging software and scripts Forum Software and scripts Podcasting software Internet radio station software PDF creation or conversion Unblockable pop-ups, pop-overs, pop-unders Enormous quantities of scripts to make you site look professionally designed. Complete office suites for your business documentation Complete databases and contact managers Split testers for you landing pages Article submitters Huge collections of what is basically "Swipe Files" for copywriters and marketers Box Shot and Book Shot makers for you Info Products Opt-in templates, pages, and scripts Autoresponders Web Servers (for serving your own sites) And much more... I have not purchased any "Big time" software but got everything free or for less that a dollar on ebay. There is simply tons of stuff, more than I can use, but I have created a site where you can get all of this stuff for free. My site "HardToFindSoftware.com" was created to filter through all of the freely available software and other useful business information products, reports, books, etc. and put them in one place, linked together by relevance and usefulness, and show which things work best with which other things. I do a complete review and list all the warts and defects I have found as well as all the great stuff about these softwares and other items. There are lots of sites that have massive lists of free software, but they rarely put these into useful categories for the business builder, and they rarely review them (there are a couple notable exceptions). HardToFindSoftware.com does all of this so you can just go there and get what you need (all for free!) and know ahead of time what things might not meet your expectations. Finally there is a forum for discussion and updates as well and you can opt in to receive updates via email. One other thing, some of you may have noticed that "HardToFindSoftware.com" sounds very much like Michael Senoff's "HardToFindSeminars.com" or his "HardToFindAds.com". First of all there is no relationship between his business and mine of any kind except for the fact that I absolutely love his site and would recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to learn more about building a real business! He gives away enormous quantities of free audio files on every conceivable subject about business. I admire that so much I decided to use the template he laid out to create "HardToFindSoftware.com". Besides, it makes good business sense and believe it or not, the domain was available...

I used more junk money to buy it too! Blessings on your business ventures! David T. McKee David McKee is a Freelance Copywriter, Marketing Consultant, and Software engineer. He writes award winning copy, creates marketing web-sites, and develops useful software. "Words that Sell the World" McKee Copywriting http://www.mckeecopywriting.com Celtic Cross Engineering http://www.celticcrosseng.com Hard To Find Software http://www.hardtofindsoftware.com