Shane Merem

Biography

I was one of those kids that took everything apart. I remember taking a robotics class at age 10.

The top of my Christmas list was a Radio Shack 2001 circuits project kit. EVERY YEAR.

So yeah I was a geek before it was cool to be a geek…

My first passion is digital electronics. Building circuits from scratch. After successfully working in that field until my early 20’s running the service division of a large automotive electronics company — I boldly started my own business and my real education began.

I spend some years in computers as the DOS era was strong and the text version of Windows (version 3.1) was becoming extinct.

I found the engineering and software side of things were still my favorite. I had a reputation for taking on projects in areas I had no expertise. After buying $500.00 worth of books and software, I would complete the project successfully and within budget. Some project small and some huge. I still have piles of books around my office and home.

I formed a company named Magnus Software in 1995 specializing in POS (Point of sale) software for grocery store cash registers. In the same time frame I had just started dabbling with dynamic,data driven web based applications. Technology that the average Joe had not heard of. A perfect opportunity.

I spent a couple years selling web sites door to door. The internet was so new — most prospects threw me out with the most common objection — “The internet is just a fad, it won’t be around long..”. You can imagine how long ago that was! Over half the business population were non-believers! I have sold and built web sites for a long time.

Magnus Software spent the end of the 1990’s building 1-3 sites per month. Big money sites for big money businesses. The only companies that could afford to do it. Business was good.

Nothing lasts forever — as we hit the year 2000 and into 2001, around the “Dot Bomb” era, I found I couldn’t give away a web site. Everyone was sick from losing enormous amounts of money in the “Dot Com” stock market investments. I had to come up with a plan.

Instead of a few customers paying big money — I knew I needed a second business model that everyone could use and most could afford.

I’m 39 years old — that product was named the “Website Forge”. Both Magnus Software, Inc and Website Forge, LLC are running profitably today.

I have a beautiful wife and three kids that take all my extra time. I love my job and web sites are my specialty. I’m located in Fowlerville, Michigan — not far from where I grew up.