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Richard is the name, investigative research is my game! I've
been a researcher all my life so it was natural for me to run
a website with a similar theme. |
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People
Ferret - Where you
can locate friends, family and even long lost loves. You can
also do free public record checks and much more! |
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People Ferret isn't
one of those sites where you pay to get background information
on other people or where you pay to do people searches. It's
more of a descriptive categorized link directory with listings
of other useful people search related sites. |
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Besides the
standard people search resources which the site is most
well known for, I added an in depth government records and
research area. Many of these government sites whether federal or
state are available to everyone, again it's a matter of knowing where
they are and that's where I come in. Most people do not
realize that places such as their local county tax
collector has all kinds of information on them that's
freely available to the general public, no cost, no
sign-up, it's almost scary. If you're neighbor wanted,
they could see what you paid for your house, who you
bought it from, see the square footage and room divisions,
a photo of it, the square feet of your property, its legal
boundaries, what improvements you made to your property,
what your tax bill is, when they are due and even if
you've paid them or are past due! That college friend of
yours that told you at your high school reunion that he is
the "positive cash flow real estate king" in his city?
Well.. check him out to see what he owns, where, and how
much rent he's actually charging. |
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How did you get
involved in your particular "niche" for your chosen online
business. |
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In my first
career I worked in the intelligence gathering and research
field. Working at the American Embassy in Cairo Egypt was
the most exciting place of all during those years. It's
where I had the opportunity to refine my online search
skills. It was during this same time that I flew back to
the states to go to my high school reunion and where the jock of all
jocks back in my high school days bragged that he was a
real estate tycoon in his city and was buying up real
estate all over town and creating his wealth through
rental properties, he touted "positive cash flow" with
every other word. I am a "geek" always have been always
will be. With my research background I
couldn't help digging around online to see if it was true,
exaggerated or pure fiction. What I found out was that he
lived in a small 1050 s.f. house and owned two mobile
homes in town. When I researched rental rates it showed he
made roughly $400 a month in "positive cash flow". I wasn't
amazed that the information was online, I had found
similar free "public domain" related information online
when I worked for the government, I was
however surprised that he wasn't smart enough to know that
this information was available out there on him. I put
People Ferret together to alert the world that they can
find out just about anything on anybody. |
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What is your
favorite part or what do you like best about running your
own online business? |
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It's exciting
to me when I locate a little nugget of information that most
people do
not know even exists. To me it's almost like a treasure
hunt where I choose an area to research and find something
unexpected. Recently I've been to sites where a people are
trying to locate other people and I find it
challenging to see what information I can dig up, then
I'll post it in the People Ferret results area or as a
special report if too big to email. My most recent special
research project was for a person that ordered kitchen
cabinets from a place called Cabinets Direct RTA (www.cabinetsdirectrta.com)
and after paying for their cabinets they could not get a
return phone call and their emails were ignored months
after paying for their order. For more you can read about
the Cabinets Direct RTA owner
Frank Lamark at my site. I don't charge people for the
research and I'm not trying to be the worlds people finder
hero, I simply like to see if I can do it with the free
public domain and the free government resources that are
available to anyone if they know where to go.
My reward is the personal challenge to myself, plus when I
do free research for someone and receive a simple "thank
you" from them, well that's just a little more gravy. |
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What is your
biggest challenge as a webmaster & site owner and how do
you overcome it? |
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My biggest
webmaster challenge is stopping myself at some point
during the initial research stage to take a break. By that
I mean there are times when I am so into finding "the
answer" that I stay online longer then I should even
though finding what I'm searching for then makes not
stopping just not matter to me any more. You can remove this
part if you must, however there are times where I almost
wish my computer chair was a functioning toilet, wish I
had a food dispenser next to my monitor, and I had a big
container of sweet tea mounted from the ceiling with a
drinking tube and on/off switch. This way I could dig into any
research project with complete abandon and not be slowed
down by bathroom visits or this whole eating drinking
requirement. My challenge isn't in being a webmaster or any
of the technical issues others might be grappling with, my
challenge is with myself and personal time management. |
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If you had to
do it all over again, what is the one thing you would
change if you could? |
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Errrrr, redo my
home office for additional plumbing items, just kidding of
course. I think I would have spent less money for the
People Search video that was professionally done by a visual
media production company. It was actually my biggest
investment into my site to date. I built the site from
scratch using WYSIWYG combined with hand coding wherever
needed, but the video I couldn't do on my own so I
outsourced it. I like the video and like what they did
however if I had did my research I could
have actually had real "human" actors in it, blue screen
graphics and a more professional feel. For now I paid for
it and by golly people are going to need to view it for a
few more years for me to get my investment back. At a
future date I will invest in a new movie to replace the
one I had made. Eventually I'd like to have
others made so I can post them to You Tube and track into
the traffic generated through that kind of viral medium. |
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What would you
tell a person reading this about starting their own online business? |
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Learn all you
can about being a webmaster and all the things that come
along with it and when you're ready then incorporate
affiliate programs, traffic generation and those kinds of
things similar to what David and Margie talk about at their
website. I would also recommend that you research
companies that you decide to outsource any work to so you
get the best price and the best end product that you
deserve, plus with research you'll avoid any type of
consumer fraud. If I can recommend a site I'd recommend a
site called
Guru where you can locate freelance professionals to
do the work that you cannot do or they'll do any work that
you do not want to do. Nothing happens overnight out here
so take it slow, learn, experiment and simply adjust your
plan as you go! |
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 We
hope you gained some insight into what it's like to run
your own online business. We appreciate the time Richard took
for our Success Story interview and have asked him to
provide some great links for you - be sure to check them
out today! David &
Margie |
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Interviews with
people earning from their websites
