The Great Idea - Part 1

Bright Ideas, they spawn in my mind all the time. When I eat, work, sleep, they surround me. I sometimes think "That's it, I need to let off, just rest, enjoy life as it is for a while." A while would pass and I'm back at it again.

Working on cars is one of my passions that I've been practicing as a hobby since 1994. Chasing a dream has been going on ever since I can remember. So on this sunny, North-West, August afternoon, the supervisor at my job has announced that the company is closing the doors and we are all laid off.

It came as a bitter-sweet surprise to me. I really liked my job - it was as close to my dream job as I think I could ever get to. My ultimate "dream" was to work for Lamborghini in Italy but I knew that I would never do that simply because I love USA and would not move to any other country. This company was a small car developer where my job was to design and fabricate body parts for the new Merlin Roadster.

While working at this company I was toying with a possibility of "flipping" a house, thanks to the Flip That House show. Since I didn’t have any money saved up, I decided to use credit cards to do all the repairs.

The surprise of having no job shocked me, I wasn't sure what I was to do. My choices were to either go into the computer and internet field or the auto body repair field of work, I had extensive experience in both. But there was this temptation to just go all out and start my own business. I felt like I was pushed out and given the opportunity to see what I've got.

By this time my available credit was about $22,000, and this was from all of about 15 credit cards. My credit score by this time was dropping because I applied for so many credit cards all in one month. So I had to make it work with what I've got and not count on more credit coming available any time soon.

The computer field is great but I wasn't sure what online business to start but I did know plenty in the auto repair business so that was my decision.

Auto body shop was going to be my first real business. My $22,000 credit should be enough I figured because I was going to do it on the small scale.

In September of 2005, The Rudd Shop was born. The first 5 months was slow and after some advertising in the local paper, classified ad publications and craigslist business started picking up.