Hi- Long-term lurker coming out of the proverbial closet

Hi all- After quite awhile reading this forum with deep interest, I think it is time to introduce myself.

About me: I work for a large international technology firm and although I call North Texas home I have spent most of the last 5 years living in Europe. I anticipate moving back home at the end of the year.

For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I am approaching an age at which employment security in the technology industry begins to drop dramatically, I am actively studying alternative business opportunities to pursue into my golden years.

Before leaving the US, I had a side business for a number of years building and remodeling houses. Clearly the future of that is a bit murky at present. Having grown up on a farm I have a long history of tearing down, rebuilding, and fabricating machinery. My educational background is in electrical engineering and international finance, and the bulk of my professional career has been in finance and technology sales. As I have read this forum over the past 6 months, it has been interesting to note that the entrepreneurs on this site do a bit of all of these things every day.

As I am convinced that Obama will be re-elected and the tax impact on W-2 wage-slaves is only going to get worse, I am searching for a business model in this industry which I could scale to an "interesting" size and take advantage of the legal tax-deductible benefits of owning a business. In the end, it is how much you keep, not how much you make, that matters. My biggest current interests are recovery of e-scrap elements (gold etc) and non-ferrous materials.

When I synthesize most of the posts to a few common themes, recurring challenges seem to be:

1) Time vs Money (e.g how much to break down vs sell as-is, fuel costs of collection vs value, hiring employees vs go-it-alone, sell it now vs invest in storage space, having to deal with a whale in installments due to lack of up-front capital, inability to invest in more productive tools,etc)

2) Margin Pressure - Direct sell-to contacts vs middlemen (e.g. getting ripped off locally, lower prices due to low volumes, prices changing due to yard inventory levels, etc.)

3) Supply chain inefficiencies e.g. high shipping costs as % of profit margin, security of supply of scrap, amateurs running up prices etc.)

I've had some ideas on improving on these challenges (also known as just smart enough to be dangerous :-) ) and I have been particularly interested in recent thread discussions around the concept of a coop. Philosophically it appears there could be an alternative option between the individual scrapper and the large refiners other than the local yard... at least for higher margin activities like gold recovery from PCBs and granulation of insulated wire.

Enough for now, look forward to brainstorming in the coming months.

Greetings Mike. I now know the most popular name in the '50-'80 yrs. I would have thought John, but you will not believe how many Mike's are on this forum. Thank you for one of the best introduction I've ever seen. It's obvious that you have spent some time in the archives. For me, it was like going back to college....but a fun one and one that allows you to work and make money at the same time. And the more you study, the more you make !! So looking forward to your posts....you've already shown your wisdom in your intro. and I'm sure we can learn from you as you learn from the forum. Dee

Hello Mike, and welcome as Dee said you not only come with a wealth of knowledge but have done your homework. I hope we can enrich you as much as you intro has enriched many of us . Thanks wb.

mike to mike, you sound like my kind of guy and, I'm sure will be an asset to the forum and us all. welcome.

I think the co op thing will catch on out of necessity if nothing else.