A few years ago, I had an idea that ran similar to what Menson did. I realized that companies, like ours was paying people to take away our outdated or non-working computer equipment. Most of this stuff still worked and had a lot of life left in it, but we'd replaced it with a newer system. Since, I had a box truck, I decided to start a computer reclamation company. I had some flyers printed and used a mailing list to send them to the business addresses in Alpharetta, Georgia. The difference between my service and the company that they were currently using? I hauled away old computer equipment for free.
Was it successful? After the initial stumbling, finding out that I needed to be bonded and insured, not really a big deal, it was too successful. My problem became that I quickly ran out of room to store the equipment, while I determined if it was good or not. My dream was that I'd fill up the lower floor of this barn, and use the upper part as a shop where I went through removing the memory, cards, and other usable parts from non-working systems then set up the working ones as new computers.
The plan was then to set up a shop in a flea market like J & J or Pendergrass. The problem? Within the first month the downstairs of the barn was full, the upstairs of the barn was full. My spare bedroom was full. I bought another 10 X 20 storage building, and it was full. One time, I had to offload my box truck outside my barn because I had another pickup that had to be done that day.
Did I sell some? Yes. I sold a bunch. That was in 2008. I gave away a lot of the computers to a friend, who bought the truck from me. His intention was to go into that type of business. He did it for a while before his main job moved him to California. I still have computers and parts from those days, around the house. I also bought some government auctions of computers to resell. Again, made money but it just took me too long to get them ready for sale.