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How I started my business

ByJeremy Schoemaker

Aug 12, 2005

How I got started with my successful business.

I say successful business because I have been trying to run my own business since 1994 when I founded a company called Netassasin. Yes I know it’s not spelled right. (I didn’t know at the time though). Anyway I did some web design and consulting while in college (which I never really went to). Speaking of web designing, it is essential that you approach the right agencies with the task of designing websites for your business. There are various agencies who offer such services and that too at highly affordable prices. You might want to look them up for more information.

In 2002 I was working for Wells Fargo Financial in Des Moines, Iowa. My title was Lead UNIX System Security Administrator. Basically I just audited UNIX (Solaris) systems for security violations and worked with government auditors who would check our infrastructure and operations for things that may violate existing acts and stuff like that..

So while working at Wells Fargo I came across a company called Redemtech.. When wells Fargo acquires a bank chain or has problems in the field they do not keep the merchandise. They call this Redemtech Company and they come and pick the stuff up then resell it to people like myself who then either sell it locally or on eBay. Redemtech pays for the equipment from Wells Fargo by weight so a new state of the art computer that weighs 25lbs vs. a 10 year old puter that weighs 50 lbs the 50 lb computer actually costs them more… weird eh?

Anyway so I made some contacts through Wells Fargo to get in touch with a rep from Redemtech and my account was setup. My first purchase was 2 computers labeled “p3 desktops working�?. I bought them for 30$ apiece. I had no idea what they were at all. Just that they were p3 desktops. When the computers arrived I was TOTALLY SHOCKED to find out they were actually dell precision 530mt.each with 2 32gb 10krpm scsi drives, 512mb ram, and the best of all A MATCHED PAIR OF 1GHZ XEON p3 processors with 1mb of cache on the die.

Now to some this may not seem like much but THIS WAS THE JACKPOT to me. I quickly called my Redemtech rep and asked him how many of these “p3 desktops�? he had and he said about 200 or so.

I knew I could sell the processors alone for about 600$ a pair all day on eBay because of the 1mb cache and they were matched. The big gamble was that I didn’t have any clue what these other p3 desktops were… could I be so lucky they were all this configuration? I had to come up with some CAPITOL!!

My girlfriend’s mother had previously made some offers of loaning me capitol if I needed it for a business venture. I called her up and she said she would loan me 5,000$ but I needed to sign some contract that said that if I defaulted her daughter (my girlfriend/fiancée) would have to pay it back. That was an interesting clause but made sense. My mother-in-law is a very smart person.

So I bought my 5000$ worth of computers and ended up getting several more dells and tons of great equipment. I ended up getting about a 25,000$ return on that 5k after all expenses and still had TONS of extra parts and new equipment for myself in the deal. Now of course I am married and Susan (my mother-in-law) is my business manager and works for me fulltime. I do a lot different business now but that is how I got my start.

Here is a pic of my dining room from my first bulk order.

dell computers

dell computers

By Jeremy Schoemaker

Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker is the founder & CEO of ShoeMoney Media Group, and to date has sold 6 companies and done over 10 million in affiliate revenue. In 2013 Jeremy released his #1 International Best selling Autobiography titled "Nothing's Changed But My Change" - The ShoeMoney Story. You can read more about Jeremy on his wikipedia page here.

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33 thoughts on “How I started my business”

  1. WOw! Interesting. I got my start on Ebay too. Selling whatever I could get my hands on. God I love the internet…;)

  2. Finally an update eh! You should update this blog more often 🙂 More power to you on the 25k return on 5k investment. It’s finding deals like that to begin with that makes it so hard to be that successful, but I’m sure with endless searching I’ll finally hit a jackpot myself.

  3. Ha! Funny how things start. Back in the 80s I worked at a recording studio and the owner used to hand over recording tape(1″) like it was free. Turns out he had a room full of it. I bought reels of tape from him at 3 pounds (UK) each and sold them at 16 to 25 pounds each, easy as falling off a log. A year later the stock ran out and I never did find another supply…. those were the days 🙂

  9. » Making a Living with Second Hand and Old Parts - Technibble - A Resource for Computer Repair Technicians & to get PC tech support help. says:

    […] Speaking of the labels on computer hardware at auctions, a fellow blogger spotted some 1ghz Xeon servers labelled as normal Pentium 3 desktops at an auction. He brought all of them for $5000 and had made a total $25,000 after expenses by selling them on eBay. Here is his story which is an excellent read can be found here: http://www.shoemoney.com/2005/08/12/how-i-started-my-business/ […]

  10. […] I first started making really good money by buying recycled computers and reselling them on eBay. It was one of the first posts I ever […]

  11. […] para outros negócios na internet. Relembro a todos que eu, tal como aliás o ShoeMoney (ver este post dele de 2005), começamos a ganhar dinheiro exactamente no […]

  12. […] and diversified, I have devoted less time to eBay.  I want to remind everyone, that I, as well as ShoeMoney, both started our online businesses selling on […]

  13. There always has to be the “thing” that starts the chain, in your case it was the computers that you paid 100 time less than what they were worth 😉

  16. […] started his business reselling desktops he got on the cheap. Then he found the great DigitalPoint forums and decided he’d really like […]

  17. […] Computers (Shoe Money) – This is slightly different than Ebay Arbitrage. Find a distributor that will sell to you at […]

  18. […] computers (Shoe Money). This is slightly different than eBay arbitrage. Find a distributor that will sell to you at […]

  19. […] computers (Shoe Money).This is slightly different than eBay arbitrage. Find a distributor thatwill sell to you at […]

  20. […] Computers (Shoe Money) – This is slightly different than Ebay Arbitrage. Find a distributor that will sell to you at […]

  21. There are other things you can do in a kitchen, but that would be one of the more tasty recipes. Do you still buy and sell on eBay, or is that now a thing of the past?

  23. […] Computers (Shoe Money) – This is slightly different than Ebay Arbitrage. Find a distributor that will sell to you […]

  25. […] checks (around $200 apiece) until I got my stuff together.  I was doing pretty well with the reselling on eBay biz and building up a bank roll making bigger and bigger purchases. By mid-2005 nextpimp had exploded […]

  26. […] checks (around 0 apiece) until I got my stuff together.  I was doing pretty well with the reselling on eBay biz and building up a bank roll making bigger and bigger purchases. By mid-2005 nextpimp had exploded […]

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