An Autistic Business Owner's Story (Free to Listen)

Transcript

An Autistic Business Owner’s Story

October 12th, 2025

Episode Preview

October is Disability Employment Month. The majority of Autistic and ADHD people are unemployed or underemployed. One employment possibility for Neurodivergents is to be self-employed. Being self-employed means that you get to choose your business, work schedule, financial goals, and make a career out of something you already enjoy.  In segments two, three and four Michael Goldberger, who is a graduate from Minnesota Independence College & Community will tell you about how he started his surplus business.  Michael will share how he conducts his business, what he has learned and what his challenges have been.  Welcome to the episode An Autistic Business Owner’s Story on Today’s Autistic Moment.

Segment 1

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Today is your day on Today’s Autistic Moment: A Podcast for Autistic Adults by An Autistic Adult. Where Autistic Adults are distinguished by using our voices and special qualities to inform and celebrate Neurodiversity.  Leave the stress of the dominate Neurotypical culture behind for a while and be proud of who you are.

This first segment of Today’s Autistic Moment is sponsored by The Autism Society of Minnesota, known as AuSM throughout Minnesota’s Autism Community. As Minnesota’s First Autism Resource for more than 50 years, AuSM serves the whole state, the whole spectrum for the whole life. Visit AuSM at ausm.org to help them reach their fundraising goal by December 31st.  Every dollar you donate to AuSM helps them maintain the essential programs and services for Minnesota’s Autism Community.

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Autistics are showing their outstanding tenacity in the face of discouraging setbacks.  Last March, Becca Lory Hector reminded us during the episode Self-Care is Personal Autistic Leadership to spend time looking after the things we can control. You can control how much news you read and absorb. You can turn it off for however long you need to.  You can pour your heart and soul into those special interests, and spend time with people who validate you. You can also maybe help someone else who is feeling low by spending time with them. You can create those supportive networks for yourself to find strength and encouragement. Take time to look after yourself in ways that help you feel safe. You can be your very own best resource to bring the best of your Autistic self forward. Ideas like these are how you tell those who are harming Autistic families that you will not be used as someone else’s tool of oppression. 

After this first commercial break Michael Goldberger will share his Autistic Business Owner’s Story.

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Commercial Break I

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Segment 2

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Philip King-Lowe   

Michael Goldberger, thank you for accepting my invitation to join me for this episode of Today's Autistic Moment. It is my pleasure to meet you and to talk with you today.

Michael Goldberger 

My pleasure to meet you too.

Philip King-Lowe 

As we start Disability Employment Month, we're going to be talking about Autistic Business Owners, which I happen to be, and you happen to be, and I think it's a great idea. We know that many Autistics have a lot of challenges with being employed. A lot of Autistics with varying disabilities and multiple Neurodivergence have challenges with employment, being employed, getting employed, staying employed, getting accommodations on the job. And while we don't want to minimalize those, there is an option that is not spoken enough about, and that is to become an Autistic business owner. And that's what I did when I started Today's Autistic Moment, and since then, I have been networked with many great Autistic business owners. And so, Michael is going to talk about the business that he runs and what he does, and sort of talk us through some ideas that may help you to be an Autistic business owner. So, Michael, let's build a foundation for our conversation today. What does this topic as an Autistic business owner mean for Autistic Adults to be multi-dimensional? Start with telling us about who you are and what you do.

Michael Goldberger 

Well, I'm Michael Goldberger. What I do is I am a surplus business owner. So, what we do is we basically, we resell things. We resell items that are new could be rarely new, mostly opened up items or used items, and they can be anywhere, mostly, though, as of lately, it's been Amazon and we reset. We pretty much resell it online, and we sell on eBay, mostly, and Poshmark and Mercari, which are resell websites.

Philip King-Lowe 

Tell us more about how you do that.

Michael Goldberger 

How we do that is that we open up the items at the start. We check, I guess I have one right here actually. Basically, what I do, I open up an item, I check it out first and foremost, that's the most important thing. You check it out. You make sure all the Pat make sure, like, if with clothing, I guess I'll start as easy as I can with clothing, you check to make sure there's a size tag, and if there's no other tags, it's an open box. So basically, it was already opened and returned. So, what I do next is I take pictures, detailed pictures each time, and I then put it in a bag, put it on the weight scale, for shipping, and then we measure it, fold it up, of course, in the bag. And then, yeah, we list it at a with the title in the description. And we have a policy which is comes as pictured, so it's a shorter way of putting this item is the real item, and what you see is how it is. And then we sell it pretty much for a price, for a cheaper price than what it was.

Philip King-Lowe 

Okay. That sounds good. Michael, can you share with us how you came up with this idea? Can you also describe how being Autistic was a strength for you? What were the strengths of Autism that you used to help you develop this business idea?

Michael Goldberger 

You know, surplus business has been around for a very long time, since, like, my guess is, I think between in the 30s, so in the 1930s. So, surplus, you know this, this wasn't my main idea to start. This was brought to my attention by my dad and his best friend. And originally I was going to be in marketing, so, you know, you're a young kid, and I would, and I'm was the marketing manager at Hope Field House in Rosemount. But during my senior year at MICC, my dad and his best friend came to me and said, Hey, how would you feel about becoming a surplus owner? And I immediately said, Yes, because I got the tour, what it's about, what we do, what they pretty much we would do. And I liked it immediately.

Philip King-Lowe 

Did you have a special interest in surplus stuff? I mean, are you a collector or, you know, have you tended to collect stuff or spend a lot of time looking at surplus items?

Michael Goldberger 

It was not my first interest. At first, I originally was going to be marketing. Again, it was not my first interest. But what really got me interested was all the different like items that you I never seen before, like, for example, I was selling, like, fridge parts there. And the part about it is that you never know what item you'll be selling. It's all a mystery until you open up the package. And that really gained my interest.

Philip King-Lowe  

Are there particular items that you have found yourself really, really interested in that tend to be your, like, like, your number one selling item?

Michael Goldberger 

You know, it's been clothing, um, now I will be soon, uh, going away from that, because we are hiring someone to come to in as and help and pretty much work alongside me, and we're going to move towards the more items that are moving faster so, and we're still researching that. But right now, it is clothing, and we have, like, we have a lot of, like, big clothing brands, like, and I can't name them off the top of my head, but, And we got also some, you know, other brands that I never knew about and too, so they're selling quickly, or they're selling at a at a reasonable pace.

Philip King-Lowe 

Can you talk a little bit about what were some of your greater challenges to starting a business like this? You know, was there something specific that seemed to be more challenging than most things when you were starting up this business?

Michael Goldberger 

Yes. At first I was not even listing. It was my sister, until I had to learn eventually how to do it. But also, what was challenging was the shipping piece today.

Philip King-Lowe 

What was particularly challenging about that?

Michael Goldberger 

Weight and measurements, we literally one item, like a breakable item we had, we put only one pound on it and then measured it out of the bubble wrap. And that was a big mistake, because what happens is, if you get that wrong, you lose money, because then they have to add on money to the shipping label.

Philip King-Lowe

Right.

Michael Goldberger 

On eBay. So that's a that was the problem at first, but we fixed it. And the other parts that were challenging was I didn't know what I was doing. My dad was we were about we were going to get some help coming in, but that didn't happen. So, I was on my own at first. I had other people around the warehouse, you know, ask questions and whatever, because I'm based out of my dad's best friend's warehouse, I had people to help with questions, one guy in particular. But it wasn't easy at first. It was really hard and I mean, the challenging part was messaging customers, was really challenging. You don't know how they're going to be like I; I over thought it a lot. You know, I, what I've learned over time is it starts with hello and thank you, and then thank you at the end, keep, keep it short and simple, just short and easy. That's, that's all I have to say on that is, it's short and easy. You don't got to say all these other words. It's just short and easy. So, they don't have to come up with other things. Today, I will say an example that today or past two days, we have a we have our had our first fast purchase scammer.

Philip King-Lowe 

Oh yeah.

Michael Goldberger 

Fast purchase scammers are pretty much, for those who don't know fast purchase scammers are people who think that that don't really read the listing, and they purchased it real quick, and then they find out it's not what they really had, and then they want to return it. And it's like, and you thought you were gonna make a good buck off it to resell it? It's like, No, you know. I mean, so yeah, no, they

Philip King-Lowe  

I know what you mean. And I mean, when I first started Today's Autistic Moment, I met many of my challenges with things like, you know, being sure that I took a look at the costs that were first coming in for me, it took me about a year, almost two, to realize that the website that I originally started using was overcharging me, and I could find another website, company that would give me a lot more for less money. And I had to learn to scale some things back, like, I'm not a large company, so no, I can't use a huge like accounting equipment, because, like I said, I don't have quite the income from that. So, finding the lower costing sites and opportunities that don't stretch my budget beyond repair has had to be the way I had to go. And I've also found that sometimes I think the hardest part has been to say no to something of the fact that with Today's Autistic Moment being a podcast for Autistic Adults, I had to say no to several individuals, for example, who wanted to post their links on my Adult Autism Resources Links Page, because that's not what their item or service was really about. It was about something other than and in some cases, some were destructive towards Autistic people. So, I had to really, you know, start digging in some heels and saying, No, you're not going to post that on with me. The other thing is that, you know, sometimes, you know, I work directly with the Autistic community, and sad to say, I'm sorry to have to say this, but there are some moments when I am not going to be able to please absolutely everybody. So sometimes I can do something, sometimes I can't. And you know, there's going to be misunderstandings, there's going to be moments when personalities just aren't clicking. So, a lot of my challenges has been just to realize that and remember that I have a responsibility to the community with which I interact. So those situations are not simple, and the other one is just accepting the fact that you're going to make mistakes, you're going to do something that's just going to cause somebody to lose it, and sometimes you can fix it, sometimes you just can't, no matter how hard to try. So, you know, that's one of those things that has been very challenging for me. And when it comes to Autistic business owners, you know, I have found myself having to find the Autistic community on LinkedIn, for example, and just listen to what they have to say about various topics, and also watch interactions. And that gives me some ideas about what to do, where to go, what ideas might work, what might not work so well, but those are some things that I've learned over time, and, you know, and the people to really stay close to are the ones that really energize you, those who really feed what you're doing and that kind of thing.

After this next commercial break, Michael will talk about how Minnesota Independence College & Community helped him to work with a diversity of customers he works with. 

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Commercial Break II

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Segment 3

Philip King-Lowe

I'd like to switch to my second question now, which is, you know, how do we help Autistics be engaged in this activity? And right now, we are in a climate where Autistic people are once again being challenged by misinformation, by decisions that are destructive to the Autistic community and those sorts of things. But one of the reasons you're here is because Minnesota Independence College & Community is one of my greatest supporters and groups of friends who have been behind it since I started it in 2021. And so, I mean, were there some things that Minnesota Independence College & Community did for you that really helped you get engaged in this activity, and how helpful has that that community been to what you're doing today?

Michael Goldberger 

They sort of helped, I'll be honest, I was doing something else at the time, like I was in their career program. I was doing hospitality, so they helped me a lot with my skills and patience. But I built up myself with surplus business. I, you know, I did. I learned communication really well in here, in the surplus business, really well, like my communication skills really built when I started the surplus business and went into that field. I give MICC credit for helping with my people skills, and I agree with you, we can't accommodate for everyone. We can't please people. And there is one of those days where I just can't please someone. And you know, that's what I've learned when I started surplus business. This business, I can't please everyone. So, yes, it's MICC did help me with my education and all that, but what really helped me with growing in employment and my self-employment was this business.

Philip King-Lowe 

So basically, Minnesota Independence College & Community gave you the basics of how to do what you're doing now. You just built upon those skills that that community helped you begin to begin to use.

Michael Goldberger 

Yeah. Yeah.

Philip King-Lowe  

Well, how do you deal with the diversity of the people you work with? I mean, this is one of those things where, you know, we're talking about a lot of our intersectional communities right now, but you know, one of the challenges, of course, is always to meet the diversity of people through your Autistic business, Autistic led business. And so, for example, you know, after I started the podcast, and as time went on, I was reminded that the Autistic community is extremely diverse. And I don't gotta say that when it comes to buying surplus items, you're always dealing with somebody something didn't fit right, something didn't look right. They want this, but they don't like the color, or they want something, you know, and I don't know really, how else to add to that question. How are you doing with the diversity of the people that you work with? Talk about some strengths and talk about some challenges.

Michael Goldberger 

You know, I've been doing well with that lately. At the beginning, it was a little tough, because, you know, you take pictures of the listing and someone buys it, yet they always have something to come. Sorry, I shouldn't use complain. Have a different opinion on it. There are now, in some cases, sometimes we're right based on things um and like what we do. And here's something very cool that we started doing recently. When we ship out items, we take pictures before we ship it out to prevent like scams, or if someone wants to return an item, they don't just send a different item back and get and we get screwed out of the deal. Or we get, yeah, you know, I mean, so yeah, so there's a problem. And they said, for example, this item's ripped, or something like that. I say, hello, thank you for reaching out. Um, are you sure did? Or I, I try to work with the customer and but then, if it comes down to it, I show them the pictures and say, here is what the pictures before we shipped it out. So, we try our best to keep things 100 and everything.

Philip King-Lowe  

And do you have any demographics of the diversity of your customers, or is that something you've done?

Michael Goldberger 

We don't do surveys on it. We just, you know, when we receive an order, it's packed up. We print the label and packing slip, and we go from there, I've noticed, um, mostly it's been either California, Vegas, not a lot of Florida, uh, Idaho or Kentucky. It's the whole thing. But that those states I've noticed the most. I think maybe we've had two overseas orders, at most. We do exclude, some countries due to what, but that's a whole different story. Yeah, it's, it's just shipping and summer, you know? I mean, it's, it's old thing

Philip King-Lowe  

How many employees work for you? Is it just you and you? Do you have others?

Michael Goldberger 

One she comes in part time, though, it's my sister. She's, yeah, yeah, she's, but she's on leave right now. So, yeah, yeah. So, it's just me right now, which is, okay, it works out.

Philip King-Lowe 

Yeah, what are your busiest seasons?

Michael Goldberger 

You know, it's always busy. We're always busy. We're listing. We're doing something every there's we don't sit, we can't sit. We're always the thing that really makes our money the most is listing stuff up, because so that way it doesn't feel like when everything's in a pallet, it's we're sitting we don't want to be sitting on a pile of cash. We want to get it up and moving somewhere that's how I look at it. As when I look at the palette, it's a pile of cash that needs to get out and come back.

Philip King-Lowe  

Has marketing been an issue for you? Are you able to easily market your products?

Michael Goldberger 

We don't really need the market, because everything listed like, there's ratings on eBay. For example, we're a top rated seller. So pretty much when some somebody looks up an item, we're like, the maybe the fourth to fifth per company that pops up. So, that that's just how it's called, pretty much. But we're still working, even though the title says we're a top rated seller, it doesn't, I don't look at that. I just kind of look at it as, oh, it's a cool title. We're still a young business. So, right? And every young business has to start, you know, at the bottom, we gotta work our way up.

Philip King-Lowe 

How long has your business been in operation?

Michael Goldberger 

A year in May of 2024, so I would say about a year and a half.

Philip King-Lowe 

Is there something that really excites you about the work you're doing?

Michael Goldberger 

Getting items up, seeing a cool item when it pops up. We recently, my grandmother gave us some stuff, and one of them was a we, our biggest time we sold was like a Chanel handbag. So, which is a huge, huge product line. And I think it sold for, like, over a grand. So, it was really good. So, it's always good when we get those big items come up.

Philip King-Lowe  

Yeah, one of the most important parts of being an Autistic business owner is our interdependence, which includes all of our other Autistic communities. Um, can you talk about how interdependence has played an important role in building your Autistic business?

Michael Goldberger 

Yeah, you know, I always give let my friends MICC too, and other people know about in the I also do Special Olympics, so they I've told people in that community as well about my business. And I think a few people have gotten it some stuff from me, because they like, like you said, yes, we've sold some blankets and we haven't got any fidgets yet. That would be a cool experience to get some fidgets and, you know, see how it goes with that.

Philip King-Lowe  

I think, I think being an Autistic business owner, um, you have an advantage in that, you know, other Autistic people and so you kind of get an idea of what might be something they might be interested in. So, one of the things that I have found is that when I interact with the Autistic community, I learned things that they're going through. I learn about things that are really impacting them, things they might feel they need. And so, one of my recommendations to you is going to be finding other Autistic individuals. The best of the best are on LinkedIn, believe me. And the thing is, is that when you connect with them, you can kind of say what are some items that you would really like to get your hands on. You know, might there be some clothing that would be a little bit more comfortable for you? Maybe you can find it. You know, there might be opportunities for you know, in an age where others are unemployed or underemployed, maybe you can find something at a rate that might be more efficient or accessible for them. You know, a lot of Autistics are looking for noise canceling headphones.

Michael Goldberger 

We got headphones for sure.

Philip King-Lowe  

Yeah, I was doing, you know, reaching out to those communities is a great way to really gain some business, but also your reputation among other Autistic individuals to help you to develop it and make it especially accessible for them, so maybe that might be of help to you in the future. Yeah, you know, and you know, sometimes it's difficult to market to the Autistic community, I have found because of the socioeconomic matter, yes, but the thing is, if you've got something to give and you've got something to offer and also to attract their interest, it's amazing how far that will take you. So, I want to encourage you to continue on with what you're doing. And you know, I certainly encourage you with what you've started. It sounds really amazing.

After this final commercial break, Michael will give you the link to his business.  Today’s Autistic Community Bulletin Board will follow.

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Commercial Break III

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Future Shows

October is also ADHD Awareness Month.  Tyler Hackner another student from Minnesota Independence College & Community will be my guest on October 26th for the episode Autistic and ADHD: The Strengths and Challenges.

On November 9th, Latoya Hinton will be my guest for the episode Autistic BIPOC Leadership.  Latoya will discuss the intersectional identities and challenges faced by BIPOC individuals in the Neurodivergent communities, including under-diagnosis and lack of mental health care. Latoya will highlight the importance of self-advocacy and self-validation. Latoya will share her personal journey of self-discovery, cultural identity, and leadership experiences, such as leading training workshops and UX research projects.  Latoya will tell you about her studies in Native American linguistics and the Cherokee language.

Thank you for listening to Today’s Autistic Moment.

♫ Segment Beginning Music ♫

Segment 4

Philip King-Lowe 

Michael, how do people find your business? Can you give us a website please?

Michael Goldberger 

Yes, we don't have a website, direct website, but we do have a we do have our account. I'll I guess we have three websites. So, it's ebay.com/usr/mggsurplus, mg, g, s, s, u, r, p, l, u, s,

Philip King-Lowe 

Alright. So, if you're looking for items to purchase. Simply go to the eBay site that Michael Goldberger has suggested, and you'll find some items that will be helpful to you and so on so forth. Yes, yeah. Sounds good. Michael Goldberger, thank you for this time on Today's Autistic Moment, this has been a delightful conversation. And you know, we wish you well in your business, and we can, we hope that you continue to expand and grow, and you know, continue to do the good work you're doing. So, thank you for being here today.

Michael Goldberger 

Thank you very much for having me.

Philip King-Lowe

You're welcome. 

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The Adult Coffee Club for Autistic Adults in Minnesota are held on the second Tuesday of every month (weather permitting) at Dogwood Coffee located at 2700 University Ave W. Suite 100 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Zip Code for your GPS is 55114. The Adult Coffee Clubs will begin at 4pm to 6pm on October 14th. December 9th. January 13th. February 10th. March 10th.

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On December 4th, beginning at 9am to 12pm there will be a workshop at The Autism Society of Minnesota entitled: Eating Disorders and Autism: Understanding the Overlap and Supporting Recovery.

Go to ausm.org to download the Fall Programs Guide with information about these and other social and recreational programs, educational events, counseling services and support groups at The Autism Society of Minnesota.

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