Starting a small IT business

Calibretto

Calibretto

VIP Member
I know what you're thinking. Just another guy wanting to start a computer business that will most likely fail after a month. I've been there and done that and learned from my mistake. I've done a lot of research on starting a small computer business and talked to a few people. I know the do's and don'ts of a small computer business. For example, eBay is not the way to go, it's all about the servicing and repair, etc. So I'm taking extra precautions and studying up on this. The only thing is, I'm going away to school in about 4 to 5 months. Could I still do it? I would really enjoy any tips from you guys.
 
Are you actually looking into opening a shop or running out of your home? I know around here theres a small shop that rarely gets any business, they are really no competition from the budget PC's that Best Buy and Circuit City offer. But if you are looking at doing some repair service for some family friends and such, then your name may get around and you may do pretty well.

I'd say stick with service and repair, trying to build computers will just cause issues, especially if something goes wrong then you lost your money and time by troubleshooting it.
 
It's going to be run from home. I was thinking about sticking with service/repair. Maybe do a few builds if any customers request. IMO, building computers is too much responsibilty though but it's kind of fun.
 
sales don't mean much, and you can't really compete with any large business as far as price for quantity goes. Also, custom building any PCs for the business world is not a good idea either.

If you really wanted to do your own IT business with repair and service you would most likely need to become an ASP (authorized service provider) for major companies like HP, gateway, Apple, so on and so forth, because they will pay you to do warranty work on their customer's machines. Any machine that has an onsite warranty, does not mean that the company directly comes out and fixes it. They sub contract local ASPs to come out and do the work, then you file a claim with the company and they pay you next check cycle.

Now, that is just warranty work, and at my old job between the HP, Apple, and Gateway repairs I was doing, I added it all up to about 18k that year I made my company. That was just in warranty work.

Non warranty work is all profit. You can charge by the hour. This is where you need to be competent and be able to perform. Networking, deployment, software installs, OS installs, hardware installs, so on and so forth.

When I was sub contracting on the side, my absolute minimum rate was $75/hour. I had higher rates for different jobs as well.
 
I'll look into an ASP. Another question....If I post things in newspapers and flyers, won't most people think I'm just a nobody and think I'm not that good? I mean after all, they could just take their computer to a local shop.
 
Calibretto said:
I'll look into an ASP. Another question....If I post things in newspapers and flyers, won't most people think I'm just a nobody and think I'm not that good? I mean after all, they could just take their computer to a local shop.
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Thats why you start off small, fix computers for some family members and family friends, then ask them to refer you if they know someone who needs help with computers, then it should grow from there.

And for a corporation, $75 is fine, however if you are just fixing computers for a few people doing basic tasks, I wouldn't charge more then $50 an hour, probably less, although I would have a minimum time so even if it's a 20 minute fix, you still get paid at least the full hour.
 
I started off at $50/hour then I calculated my costs (travel, gas, time, tools, energy), then I realized it was not worth my time unless I bump it up to 75/hour and that is the starting rate. Data recovery, server config, and networking cost more per an hour as they require more skill to accomplish.

I once had a guy who was an audio engineer call me because his data was gone, and he lived about 40 minutes away. I told him for data recovery it is 125 an hour. He thought that was too pricey so I told him to call the local data recovery centers. He called me back because I was half price.
 
If you do start, you need to advertise the differences in cost between places like best buy (geek squad) and your place. You can have a modo like "If we mess your computer up, you know where I live!"
 
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