I built my business on an idea. My idea was that I could do the job better than my boss and produce a better product in the process.  I knew how to work with people and I knew how to build a better product.  What I did not know how to do was to market my product and get it out into the public.   I figured the internet was probably here to stay and I should use it to sell my product.  As a start I set our building a list of everyone I knew that I thought would be interested in what we were producing.