Randy Kady needs $500,000 to launch his online business, and he thinks he'll find the cash in boxes stacked in his garage filled with old National Geographic magazines.

There's nothing special about the 380 magazines, 30 years' worth dating back to the 1940s, other than Kady's sentimental connection with them through his late, beloved grandmother "Grammie,&quo ...t; who left them to him in her will.

Kady's plan is to swap a few magazines at a time for more valuable items. He'll then swap those for other more valuable items until he has something he can sell on eBay for a few thousand dollars.

Do that a few hundred times, and he'll have his money.

In two years, he hopes to make enough to start an online business, which involves building a large and expensive database. Kady won't divulge any other details about the business, but he assures it's a good one, worth the effort of swapping.

"It's kind of a crazy idea," Kady said while picking through the magazines in the garage of his Loveland home. But Kady said he has never backed down from a challenge.

The swapping business model is commonly referred to as "trading up," a concept popularized by Kyle MacDonald, who began trading a red paper clip in July 2005 over Craigslist.org and managed to trade up to a house a year later with 14 trades.

He wrote a book about the experience, "One Red Paper Clip," which was the inspirations for Kady's business plan.

"I thought, if he can get a house out of it, why can't I get a business out of it?" Kady said.

The swapping is off to a decent start. Kady has made 14 trades through Craigslist and obtained oil paintings, a Nintendo Game Cube, two mountain bikes and several other items he's looking to trade up.

Littleton resident Nancy Ditman traded two oil paintings and some other items for three magazines, each from the month and year of her children and son-in-law's birthdays: February 1965, July 1966 and February 1969.

She's giving them as Christmas presents.

"I think it's an interesting, different idea," Ditman said, who admitted she would have just rather bought the magazines from Kady. "I hope he can do it."

Images of all the magazines covers and the items up for trade are on Kady's Web site, www.swapstart mybiz.com, including photos of some of the swappers.

The swapping scheme really comes out of necessity, as well as Kady's focus to be the sole investor in his business venture, he said.

Two years ago, Kady began putting together the business idea only to learn it was going to cost him about $100,000 to build the database he needed and a few more hundred thousand dollars to launch the business right.

"It was very discouraging and overwhelming," Kady said, recalling several conversations he had with people in the field.

Like many Americans, Kady's retirement savings from his graphic design job at a local publishing company lost more than half its value with the recent downturn in the economy, so he doesn't want to dip in to what's left.

All but defeated, Kady then thought of his grandmother's National Geographic magazines in the garage in relation to the "One Red Paper Clip" book.

"I thought, here's a gift that Grammie gave me that has potential," he said.

The potential to achieve more has always been a staple in Kady's family. Kady was raised by a single mother, growing up with two sisters in Aurora. And Kady's Grammie, Jessie Thompson, lived around the corner from his house and played a large role in raising him.

She was widowed in 1977, making Kady the man of both houses as a child.

"She was love personified. She loved you unconditionally, and she was the cornerstone of our family," Kady said.

As a child and as an adult, Kady spent countless hours digging through her collection of National Geographic magazines, which is why she specifically left them to him in her will when she died at 99 years old in 1999.

He views the magazine collection as a reflection of his grandmother's generation, which learned frugality through economic depression and war. Turning the hoarded magazines into a business fits her prudent ethic, Kady said.

"I can't think of a better tribute for the gift that my Grammie gave me than to make a business out of it," Kady said. "I know that's what she would have wanted."