Everyone thinks you need money to make money. This guy started with no money at all.

Where's the money?

Show me the money!

From paper-clip to house, in 14 trades

Shows you what can be accomplished with dedication and persistence. There used to be a good tv show called Barter Kings. They would trade up from low-value items to items worth thousands.

Lol if only this worked for all trades everyone would be a millionaire...

You can find a ton of examples for these one-offs.
Is it the norm NO....

Yes it is definitely possible to make money without spending any money upfront.

That's nothing new when it comes to making money.

Some of the richest people in the world are the ones who know how to make money with just their ideas. Authors, speakers, seminar leaders, recording artists, film producers and internet marketers etc.

When you know how to print money out of thin air, then you truly have the formula to get rich quickly.

It's all about marketing.

Yes it is definitely possible to make money without spending any money upfront.

Yes it can be done, but one must have something first, an Idea, a dream, a vision.

This guy Josh Bezoni started his website in the negative - $150K in debt. Then his website made millions. Starting from Scratch

What are you talking about - Not spending money ??? I just read the story and in the course of the year he spent thousands in airfare - traveling to many places.

I think a good dose of luck is also needed to be able to achieve something like this, but of course, perseverance and good ideas put into practice are a must!

Interesting,

No doubt there are success stories, but rarely will you see one which involved no investment. I know many who started businesses with loans from family and personal friends, but I have yet to meet anyone who has made it big without spending a fair amount of money starting up business. In several businesses I started, I had little to invest, but identified a valid money saving niche which is what anyone looking to launch a business has to look for. If you hope to make it with the same old same old business model and same old same old product or service, and you have not money, forget about it, your chances of getting hit by lightening are better odds than being successful in your own business.

It takes money to make money in almost 99% of the cases, simple fact, so to see a few of these rare cases of success with no investment are either BS or just plain lucky. And sadly, most are BS as I took the time to back check many of these stories and none turned out to be true, so BEWARE, there are more BS stories of these so called guru's on the internet than factual cases of success which can be verified, so don't fall for 99% of these deals of no money success stories.

Could it happen to the average Joe or Jill, yes, but not likely. I research the best free to low cost businesses, and have for decades, yet I have found few which truly are free and where anyone can succeed. My latest business niche is one few have heard of yet, but billions will want it when they discover this breakthrough, and that is the kind of businesses I target. Businesses which you don't have to sell, just show and tell, easy as 1-2-3, everyone understands with simple demonstration, now here is a business which just may enable the 99% ers to finally realize success.

Bottom line, most have heard the phrase, you have to fake it to make it, and this strategy has polluted the online and home business arena with so many fakes that it makes you sick. I had one such guru I have followed for years, and sure, he made good money in the past, but is bankrupt today, so what worked yesterday does not mean it will work today, never mind tomorrow. So many who did hit it big are dead broke today, and they just can't seem to duplicate prior successes. I know how it feels, I hit it big a couple times, but again, everything changes, but one lesson I learned long ago, never give up looking for the next wave which could be bigger than the last wave. Live and learn.

Success to all,

Wow, amazing story...

The trades are amazing, and this is inspirational

Thanks for the share

"Free" means you don't have any cash upfront. Back in the day, it was easy, just write some crappy articles with a link to your site, and a few days or weeks later find $25+ commissions in your account. Not quite as easy these days, but making commisions is not hard.

The key is reinvesting your paltry profits and scaling up.

Just 'cause it worked for him don't mean it will work for me. I know there are loads of lottery millionaires, but should I buy lottery tickets?

No money you say???

Traveled to Vancouver
Traveled to Massachusetts
Traveled to California, then to New York
Read the post you link to, How much do you think it cost for all that traveling. I personally think it was a bit more than free or the cost of a single paperclip

al

I think a lot of people here did not read the article or if they did they didn't not think much about what took place. He did not "start with no money" - that is obvious.

As agmccall points out above he spent a ton of money on travel. That is assuming this is actually a true story..... but than I read it on the internet so it must be true !

What i learnt is that Money attracts money

That also worked because his whole endeavour went viral. People were trading stuff with him because he was becoming a celebrity as as much as a shrewd trader.

It's all about finding a unique way to get attention. Similar to The Million Dollar web page.

A guy created a 1000x1000 (1,000,000) pixel image as a single page. He then sold each pixel for a dollar. It also went vial and corps were buying blocks of pixels to take advantage of the viral exposure and traffic.

He easily sold all the pixels and made $1 million.

The page is still up:

The Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history!

The pixels sold out long ago but you can buy a poster of the page.

There are many ways to make money without money.

Was all over barter kings...

lately the quality of "reality" tv has dwindled on the reality portion.

When I suspected things were being planted in the storage units on "storage wars" I started to doubt.

All of it takes some effort, but I know from early experience that marketing applies from eBay up!

He must have some money to travel around the country to barter.

Some people are just good with selling. If you are good with words, goto your public library with free WiFi, get an oDesk account and get some copy writing jobs. Not much money involve in getting a project.

I just watched a TV show last week where a guy goes to a very old rubbish dump and digs out old bottles. The council does not use the dump anymore long before. Anyway he got the bottle appraised and it fetched between $4k - $6k.

Obviously this guy paid money to drive from city to city trading this stuff, so he did NOT do this without money!

Kidding, kidding....

There's a guy who inherited his guitar and is playing down the corner of the city... He seems to be making money. =)

My wife's brother and his friends trade all the time on craigslist. They mainly trade cars and trucks though. I've seen him go from a $500 beat up honda, to a 3 year old Jaguar in matter of months, with no extra cash added on any of his trades.

That is some wit! I guess some people have a knack for something like this -- not the salesmanship or the trading part. But the brain to come up with such idea, and the courage to hustle it through. Like you've been reading, the fact that he became famous half way through does help.

Every now and then you'd hear stories like this... the 1 million pixels, this trading up, etc. I think the takeaway is not the actual thing that he did. It's hard to replicate that. But it's about having an idea, hustling your way through and really working hard.

By the way, all these trading reminded me about a business strategy I once heard. Something that can be very valuable is not the product, is not money -- but the rights to something -- that others may think worthless... like the rights to hang ads on the window of your shop.

I have heard a story about a guy who went around town securing rights from shop owners to hang ads on their windows. Big billboard companies ignored this then. When he has the rights to a big number of shops, he flipped it to a big billboard company for huge money.