How To Start A Computer Business · 2014-07-30 · How to Start a Computer Business Guide –...

How to Start a Computer Business Publication date July 2014 Author: Technibble Published by: Technibble www.Technibble.com Version 1.0 © Copyright 2014 Bryce Whitty All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without prior written consent from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. You may store the PDF on your computer and backups. You may print one copy of this book for your own personal use. Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is based on the authors experience, knowledge and opinions. The author and publisher will not be held liable for the use or misuse of the information in this book. Technibble is a trademark of Whitty Ideas.

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Contents Chapter 1: Can You Manage A Business? .............................................................................................. 6

Can You Manage A Business? ................................................................................................................... 6

• Do You Need Money Right Now? .................................................................................................. 6

• Can You Manage Money? ............................................................................................................. 6

• Is Working on Computer Systems All You Want to Do? ............................................................... 7

• Do You Have an ‘Entitlement Mentality’? .................................................................................... 7

Chapter 2: Essential Skills for Basic Residential Computer Repair Work ................................................ 8

Know How To Use Search Engines ............................................................................................................ 8

Remove Tough Viruses .............................................................................................................................. 9

Know What a Clean Windows System Looks Like ..................................................................................... 9

General Hardware Understanding ............................................................................................................ 9

Troubleshoot Hardware Problems ............................................................................................................ 9

Recover Data From a Non-Booting Operating System ............................................................................. 9

How to Format a Computer and Understand Windows Licensing ......................................................... 10

Identify, Find and Install Appropriate Drivers for Hardware .................................................................. 10

Repair a Damaged Windows Installation ................................................................................................ 10

General Networking Skills ....................................................................................................................... 10

Social Skills .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Don’t Be Afraid to Say No ....................................................................................................................... 11

Chapter 3: Franchises, Worth It or Not? ............................................................................................. 12

Buying a Franchise vsBuying a Private Business ..................................................................................... 12

Franchise Principle: ............................................................................................................................. 12

Startup Buyout Principle: .................................................................................................................... 12

The Tech Market ..................................................................................................................................... 13

Chapter 4: Count the Cost of Getting Set Up ....................................................................................... 15

Getting Set Up Legally ............................................................................................................................. 15

Rent and Utilities ..................................................................................................................................... 16

Stock ........................................................................................................................................................ 16

Tools ........................................................................................................................................................ 16

Business Cards ......................................................................................................................................... 16


Office Items ............................................................................................................................................. 17

Web Hosting ............................................................................................................................................ 17

Business Forms And Finance/CRM Software .......................................................................................... 17

Reserve Funds ......................................................................................................................................... 18

Chapter 5: Before You Go Out On Your Own – Conflicts of Interest .................................................... 19

Beware of Conflicts of Interest ............................................................................................................... 19

Chapter 6:How to Juggle A Computer Business While Working Full Time ........................................... 20

1. You can’t please everyone. ................................................................................................................. 20

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. ........................................................................................................... 20

3. Leverage the power of the ‘Cloud’. ..................................................................................................... 21

4. Breaks and lunch are your best daytime friends. ............................................................................... 21

5. Don’t actively market to business clients so long as you cannot handle 9-5 work. ........................... 22

6. Consider your day job as a “word of mouth” gold mine. ................................................................... 22

7. Set appropriate expectations for clients and yourself. ....................................................................... 22

8. Most importantly, make time for yourself. ........................................................................................ 23

9. Keep Up With Technology ................................................................................................................... 23

Chapter 7: 6 Tips For Naming Your New Business ............................................................................... 24

#6: Don’t Name Your Business After Yourself ........................................................................................ 24

#5: Don’t Let Your Name Frame You Into a Box ..................................................................................... 25

#4: Can’t Get the Dot Com? Don’t Sweat It ............................................................................................ 25

#3: Long Names Stink in More Ways Than One ...................................................................................... 25

#2: Can You Trademark Your Name If you Wanted To? ......................................................................... 26

#1: The Web 2.0 Name Craze Is Over ..................................................................................................... 26

So, What Does a Good Name Look Like? ................................................................................................ 27

Codegreen Technology: ...................................................................................................................... 27

Pacific Computer Services: .................................................................................................................. 27

Calm Computing: ................................................................................................................................. 27

Data-Medics: ....................................................................................................................................... 27

LifelineIT: ............................................................................................................................................. 27

Chapter 8: How to Get a Killer Logo and Business Card ....................................................................... 28

1. Give as much detail as you can in your creative brief .................................................................... 28


2. Set your budget and pay a fair price ............................................................................................... 29

3. Work with the designers and provide constant feedback .............................................................. 29

4. Get opinions and choose a design .................................................................................................. 29

Business Cards ......................................................................................................................................... 29

Chapter 9: Markup, Warranty, and Promotional Material .................................................................. 30

How Much Markup Should You Place On Parts? .................................................................................... 30

How Long Should You Warranty A Part? Should You Provide A Warranty At All? ................................. 31

Chapter 10: Technician Supply Resources ........................................................................................... 32

Avoid Consumer Retail Outlets for Basic Supplies .................................................................................. 32

‘But I Don’t Have the Tools, Accessories, or Experience’ ....................................................................... 33

Stay Open to New Merchants and Products ........................................................................................... 33

Chapter 11: Juggling a Family and a Tech Business Start-Up ............................................................... 35

Wait, I’m not married and I don’t have children! ................................................................................... 35

Chapter 12: Most Common Beginner Mistakes for New Computer Businesses ................................... 38

Charging Too Little .................................................................................................................................. 38

Pirated Software Or Inappropriate Licenses ........................................................................................... 38

Not Having Business Insurance ............................................................................................................... 38

Getting In Over Your Head ...................................................................................................................... 38

Learning On Clients’ Computers ............................................................................................................. 39

Chapter 13: A Personal Experience - How I (Finally) Quit My Day Job To Run My Computer Business . 40

Stop thinking about it and start doing it. ................................................................................................ 44


The tech related fields are growing exponentially due to the dependence on computers and devices in the modern business world. If you’ve picked up this book, you’re probably considering starting a computer repair business or managing a business in the tech industry. Before you do anything, you must decide whether or not you can manage a business, count the cost, and make sure you’re prepared to go through with it. This ebook was designed with those factors in mind. You’ll be taken step by step through all the factors you’ll need to consider to get involved in the computer repair industry, as well as the actual steps you’ll need to take to get started on the road to being a successful repair technician.

Chapter 1: Can You Manage A Business?

Can You Manage A Business? If someone told me they wanted to start their own business, I would say “Go for it!” I am the type of person who will always tell someone to follow their dreams. In my opinion, it would be horrible to look back and have regrets, wondering what you could have done if you had followed your dreams. However, people also need to be realistic about it before they start up. Before you do anything where finance is involved, you need to count the cost, and make sure you’re the right kind of person to start up a business or even manage one. Here is a short checklist to determine whether you are that type of person.

• Do You Need Money Right Now? If you are looking to start your own business to make money quickly, you are making a big mistake. In most cases you will be making less money for the first few years than you would have working as an employee under someone else. To those people who are working as employees, the idea of earning $70 an hour is quite attractive to them. However, they don’t understand that they don’t get to pocket all of that money. That money needs to be put towards advertising, transportation costs, rent, accountants, taxes, and other business related expenses. You don’t earn $70 an hour simply because that’s what you charge when you’re self employed, part of your service charge goes to business expenses.

• Can You Manage Money?

If you are constantly finding yourself low on money when you need it, it is not a good idea for you to go into business. Managing your money isn’t “just one of those things” you do in business, it is what business is all about. For every week that you earn money, you need to put a large part of it away for advertising and expenses including keeping a decent amount of money as usable funds so you can buy stock for the next week.


If you can’t stop yourself from treating yourself to that brand new 60” TV with these funds because “you deserve it”, you’ll probably manage your business funds badly as a self employed business owner.

• Is Working on Computer Systems All You Want to Do?

A common mistake that beginners make is starting their businesses expecting that they can work on computers all day without all the office politics and meetings they had with their 9-5 jobs. You need to keep in mind that being self employed often means less time doing computer work because now you have to do tasks that would have usually been done by the secretary, the marketing department or the accounting department at your last job.

• Do You Have an ‘Entitlement Mentality’? One of the big differences between employees working for someone else and self employed business people is the ‘entitlement mentality’. Employees have the mentality that they are entitled to sick pay, holiday pay, overtime pay and even getting a raise if they deserve it. Their boss will look after all of it for you and put money away for their superannuation and maybe even cover some sort of health care plan which they are entitled to later in life. When you are self employed, its all you. You are not entitled to anything. If you have to work late chances are you are probably not going to get paid any more. The self employed business owners also need to put money away during their good days so they have something to live off if they fall sick or go on holidays. No one else is going to do that for you. Getting out of this “entitlement” mentality will give you a great advantage in business.

How did you measure up on the checklist? Are you the type of person who can manage a business and the associated factors? If you are, keep reading, because now we’re going to talk about what you need to know as far as actual skills to do repair work.


Chapter 2: Essential Skills for Basic Residential Computer Repair Work

Let’s take a look at some of the skills needed to get involved in basic residential computer repair work. If and when you branch into the business sector, you’ll need to broaden out your experience, but it’s better to start off with residential repair work. If you’re broadening out from residential to businesses, and you’re not sure where to start, check out Technibble’s ebook here regarding focusing on businesses and getting started in the business sector. Here’s a list of what skills are essential to a technician that wants to do basic residential jobs. This is a very general skill set that covers most tasks performed in the residential market.

Know How To Use Search Engines Lets face it, it’s almost impossible for a technician to know how to fix everything they come across. There are all sorts of strange error messages that are fairly cryptic, but if it’s a common operating system or application, you’ll probably find a solution rather quickly on a tech repair forum or perhaps even an official forum hosted by the developer. Other people have already spent hours trying to figure out and most likely succeeded, so don’t bash your head against the wall trying to fix it without any idea what you’re doing, just ‘Google it’! Don’t be afraid to use search engines in front of your client either, as its better to say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” rather than continue along blindly costing your client more money. Using Google sounds simple enough but a technician should know to use advanced operators effectively. Of course, if you have another favorite search engine, apply these tips accordingly. If you were to search for computer repair California, it would include pages that have the word computer, repair and California in it but it doesn’t have to be “computer repair California” in that order. The block of text that Google finds could be “I found a place using my computer that will repair my TV and its located in California”. A better search would be “computer repair" +california -geeksquad. This will produce results where the site must have computer repair together somewhere in it. The page must have the word California but doesn’t matter where and it will exclude pages that say “geeksquad” on them. For more information on using Google well by using its advanced operators, check out this page.


http://www.technibble.com/products/business-client-book/?utm_campaign=Technibble+Site&utm_source=Technibble+Startup+Ebook

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861



Remove Tough Viruses You need to be able to remove tough viruses (without formatting) and understand how to use tools like Autoruns, Process Explorer, D7 II & UBCD4Win. Linux systems such as Ubuntu are making headway in the consumer area, so boot up Ubuntu and play around with it, and familiarize yourself with Linux commands, as there are a few Linux recovery systems you will probably make use of as well.

Know What a Clean Windows System Looks Like You need to know what processes, files and services commonly appear in a clean Windows system as this greatly assists in the removal of viruses and other malware. For example, a 22kb file named exqzxcop.exe that was created two days ago, is currently running and is residing in the system32 directory probably shouldn’t be there. Basically, if you know what the good guys look like, it makes it easier to spot the bad guys.

General Hardware Understanding This is a fairly large topic but the essentials are understanding the power supply wattages and voltages, how to replace each part inside the machine, and where to find them. For instance, having an understanding of motherboard and CPU socket types, RAM types and speeds, motherboard slot types, i.e. AGP, PCI, PCI-E, and so on. Do you know the difference between SATA and IDE hard drives and connectors? With all these skills, you need to be able to assemble a computer from the spare parts, and more than that, build a good system by knowing which parts are compatible and which parts will create bottlenecks.

Troubleshoot Hardware Problems Computer parts will eventually fail, and it isn’t always obvious what the issue is right away. You need to understand things like BIOS beep codes and what it means if the computers fans spin up but there is no video. You need to understand issues you might encounter when nothing powers up or the computer powers up for 2 seconds then shuts down. You can learn this by experimenting with a worthless test PC that you don’t care about, because it may get damaged. Many Techs picked up this experience by finding old computers or old spare parts and building systems out of them. If one of them gets damaged, ‘nothing gained, nothing lost’.

Recover Data From a Non-Booting Operating System You need to be able to recover data from a non-booting operating system by either using a boot CD like UBCD4Win and an external hard drive; or by putting the bad drive into a good


http://www.foolishit.com/d7/?ap_id=whittyideas

system of your own and recovering it that way. In fact, the safest recovery method is cloning the bad drive and then working with the clone to recover the data. Software such as Clonezilla is good for this. If the data is important to the client, its always best to refer it to data recovery professionals.

How to Format a Computer and Understand Windows Licensing Formatting a computer is a fairly common task for most computer technicians but it requires more than just sticking in the Windows CD during boot time and installing. You also need to know the differences between OEM, Retail, Branded, Home, Professional, Volume and Corporate Licenses.

Identify, Find and Install Appropriate Drivers for Hardware You need to know how to install common peripherals like printers and scanners, how to identify hardware devices by either looking on the actual hardware for model numbers or using a tool like SIW or Everest and know how to spot driver problems in the Windows Device Manager. You can also use the online hardware directory, PCIdatabase.com to identify hardware using the vendor ID and other device info.

Repair a Damaged Windows Installation You need to know how to get into safe mode, how to do a repair install of Windows, how to run the chkdsk command and registry restore with a recovery utility CD like UBCD4Win.

General Networking Skills

You will need to know how to setup a basic wired and wireless network, set up a modem, router, or network computers with each other. You will need to understand how IP addresses work in a private network and in a public internet scenario. You will need to know what masks, subnets and gateways are as well as understand DHCP. You will need to know when and how would you use static IP addresses, what port forwarding is as well as understand wireless encryption types, wireless signal strengths, and wireless network troubleshooting. These are all just basic issues you need to have experience in before you try to fix someone else’s problems.

Social Skills You can be the best technician in the world but if people don't like you personally, you won't get far. You need to learn how to speak to the general consumer in a way they understand _____________________________________________________________________________________

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because “geek speak” often sounds condescending and will frustrate and annoy your clients. Are you professional in your speech, polite, and respectful? You need good social skills because this is a service industry, and you’re not just dealing with machines. You’re dealing with their owners and administrators first.

Don’t Be Afraid to Say No Don’t accept work that you don’t know how to do and don’t get in over your head. For example, Bryce Whitty, owner of Technibble.com, had the following experience to share.

“I once had to clean out 4 servers for a courier company. This company had about 400 trucks going around the city at any given time. They were all GPS tracked via these servers and dispatchers could assign jobs to them. This job listing such as who’s the client and where its going was also tracked by the servers. I can easily clean out a servers as I have done clean out jobs many times before but I had to shut these machines down in order to clean them because their panels were inaccessible.” He continued, “These servers also ran 24/7 so they haven’t been rebooted in a long time. The technician who set up these servers was in Cambodia at the time so if these servers don’t boot back up after the cleaning the business will be in big trouble. Even though I knew how to clean them, the damage to the business that would occur if they didn’t come back up was just too high so I turned it down. Losing a little bit of money and maybe taking a little ego hit is a lot better than getting sued.”

Make sure your experience level is high enough to start up a repair business. If it’s not, chances are you’ll end up making costly mistakes that could end your computer repair career very quickly, and perhaps earn you a bad reputation at the same time that could follow you to any other venture you might try. Now that we’ve considered basic skills, and you’re the right type of person to start or open a business, what type of business will that be? There are repair franchises, or you could start your own business with your own business name. First let’s take a look at the world of franchising, and then we’ll consider self-employment as the other route.


Chapter 3: Franchises, Worth It or Not?

Wouldn’t it be great to jump into a business that already has a system and marketing in place? You have probably heard of the franchising model, but does it make sense the tech market? Let’s take a look. There are many advantages to franchises and one of those is branding. What’s in a name? In fact there is a lot in a name and when you have a good brand with a large following; it can easily determine success or failure. If you think about all the McDonalds’ restaurant all over the world, most of them are franchises. The same goes for Pizza shops and other food related brands. When you walk into one of these restaurants no matter where you live, you will expect the same level of service and similar menus and prices. This system works because humans generally tend to gravitate towards what they know and are familiar with. In the technology world, franchises are not that common but the principle behind the idea still works. Another draw to purchasing a franchise is that you are purchasing a system that is already in place. When you start a business from scratch you create the systems from scratch as well. The business system is crucial and as common sense dictates, businesses without good systems usually fail quickly. They are also less valuable because when you look to sell a business you are basically selling the business system that was created. Hence, this is a main attraction of a franchise- the one-two combo of a system and branding already in place.

Buying a Franchise vsBuying a Private Business Franchise Principle:You want to start a business but you don’t want to deal with all the marketing, research and branding. You have the capital to invest and someone is willing to help you start and give you the needed coaching. You part with your cash and set up your business as quickly as possible because you are not trying to reinvent the wheel. You start to see income immediately because you integrated a system that already works. Startup Buyout Principle: You have an idea for a service or a product but you don’t have the time to go through the process. You look around for a little company that is doing exactly what you want and you see the potential in the company and how it can be a source of substantial income. You pay a large sum of money to buy the company with its client base and you are up and running the next day. Think about Google buying Youtube. The idea behind this is that Franchises and Buying Startups are different but the principle is the same. You get what you want by throwing money and it with the strategy of saving time and resources. There are disadvantages to franchises and one of the foremost is the amount of money you have to spend to integrate the system. You will also be forced to follow the same pricing and marketing ideas of the parent company. If the parent company decides to upgrade, you will not have your say in how to proceed. You will also be obligated to use the same sets of providers even if there are better offers available. There is also the problem of location if _____________________________________________________________________________________


you choose a brick and mortar franchise. If you have a good brand but choose your location unwisely, you will lose money and you will lack the flexibility of adapting your prices to accommodate your losses.

The Tech Market When it comes to purchasing a franchise that offers computer services, repair, managed services, etc; my personal opinion is that it’s not really worth it. Why? At the bottom of this article I listed links to some IT franchises. That is not an extensive list, but even so, I have only heard of one of them, at least in my area (Geeks on Call). I have only heard of them because I run a business and I’ve researched who the competitors are. However, if you ask my typical customer, or basically the average customer around here about that franchise I guarantee they would not have a clue. They are just another computer repair service. The point I’m getting at is that one of the main draws, the branding, is kind of useless in the market where I am. The only advantage of buying a franchise in this area is getting a system already in place and a franchisee to do the marketing. However, the name (branding) just doesn’t make much difference because none of those franchises listed are that well known to the customer base. This may be different in your area, so please recognize I am giving an opinion. In your market a franchise may be more beneficial, but from what I see in computer repair franchises, the branding advantage just isn’t there. The question you need to ask is if the system, marketing, and branding is worth the cost of the franchise. Perhaps there may be a customer base in place, for example a business may have a contract with a certain franchise in a different city and they just expanded to your area. Opening that franchise could easily get part of that business. Bottom line, you need to do your own research and make a decision based on what is best for you and what you want to accomplish. In the world of business, time is of the essence. If you are not quick at adopting a methodology that works, you will likely find that you are part of yesterday’s technology and will be relegated to the land of historical fascination. When it comes to franchises, there are those who feel that they are not worth it whilst others see the benefits. Like most things in business, it can go wrong and you can end up losing money. On the other hand, it can also help you become the next big thing. Remember Yahoo and Google? Remember MySpace and Facebook? These are not franchises but someone did something wrong and another got it right. Buying a franchise may get you in the door faster, but you are at the mercy of the parent company for future direction. Plus, is it worth the upfront cost for the system and marketing; are you better off creating those yourself; or if you have the cash, what about buying an existing business in your area that already has a customer base and built a good local brand? So to answer the question if franchises are worth it or not… well, there really is no answer as it’s totally up to your goals and your own situation. Due diligence is required and a franchise is no guarantee of success. _____________________________________________________________________________________


Here is a list of some computer service franchises for further information: Nerdforce TeamLogic CM IT Solutions Computer Medics Computer Troubleshooters Friendly Computers Geeks on Call Nerds We Can Fix That It is the dream of many computer technicians is to start their own computer repair business. This dream is a great one to go for but before starting a business, you will need to face the realities of the businesses startup costs. In the next chapter we will cover some of the startup costs one can expect.


http://www.nerdforce.com/

http://teamlogicfranchising.com/

http://cmitfranchise.com/

http://computermedicsofamerica.com/

http://www.comptroub.com/

http://www.friendlycomputers.com/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchises/geeksoncall/289269-0.html

http://nerdswecanfixthat.com/

Chapter 4: Count the Cost of Getting Set Up

Getting Set Up Legally On the Technibble forums, we occasionally get questions about how to get a business set up legally like how to get the appropriate tax IDs or what items can be deducted on tax. In most countries and states you can register the business yourself inexpensively through the government websites. However, there is just no replacing the knowledge of a local accountant who knows the laws in your country and state. Having an accountant set you up legally should be one of the first things you do because you can then claim many of your other start up expenses as a tax write off for next year. Take this time to pick the accountants brain asking about what items you can claim as a business expense and what is the best way to keep things organised to make things easier at tax time. If your new computer business will be your only source of income then you need to work out how much money you need to take home per week to maintain your current lifestyle. Once you know that figure you need to times it by at least 26 which gives you 6 months to get up to the point where you take home what you need to maintain your current lifestyle. This is the minimum you should have for startup if the computer business will be your only source of income. Will you be going into business under your own name or a variant of it? For instance, will you be doing business as Smith’s Computer Services or have you already come up with a catchy DBA (Doing Business As) for your services? There are arguments for and against using your own name in your business name, and there are pros and cons for both. Using your own name for your business is a good option if you are fairly well known in the community. You’ve put your name on your business and it’s a reflection of your own reputation, and many respect that and might be drawn to your services because of your name’s reputation. On the other hand, some view using their own name in their business name as less than professional, or perhaps they feel their name is boring or doesn’t give their business name a nice ring. There is much to be said for both sides. However, if you plan to use a DBA, make sure you fulfill the local requirements, such as filing a DBA with your local county clerk or other authority. It might only be $14, depending on the situation, but it’s something to make sure you get done if you plan to use a DBA. There are other legal requirements in many areas. Do you need to register your business on a regional level? For instance, in the U.S., you may be required to collect Sales and Use Tax on your services and report it quarterly to the state you live in. We won’t list all the potential requirements as each region is completely different, but you should be able to easily locate government resources on every level to help you locate requirements you need to fill to comply with regulations.


Rent and Utilities The best place to start your business is in a home office. Bryce Whitty, owner of Technibble.com, shared this startup experience:

“As has been mentioned in many articles on Technibble, I was 17 when I started my business so my rent and utilities were zero at the time since I was still living with my parents. Now days I have moved my office to the place where I live and since I was already paying my rent to live there, it doesn’t make much difference working there either.”

For those of you who want to start your business as a retail store front, it’s highly recommend to start in a home office as it takes time to build a client base to support yourself until things get busy.

Stock Stock can be one of your big startup costs but luckily its not always necessary to carry much stock. Bryce, mentioned above, shared this point: “When first starting out, if I found that I needed a certain part while on site, I would often go out to buy the needed part at a local computer store but not charge the client for the time since it was my fault that I wasn’t carrying the stock. Now days, I just carry one or two of most computer parts that don’t devalue quickly like RAM (old RAM prices can actually go up), portable DVD-Burners, Power Supplies, Wireless Routers, Wireless USB Dongles, Cables, Cases, Keyboard/Mice and installation media and recovery ‘discs’ for current and popular operating systems. Items like CPUs, Video Card and Hard Drives I only buy as needed as the value drops too quickly.”

Tools The absolute minimum amount of tools you should have is a small toolkit for computers (about $14 USD), a USB drive ($10 to $100 depending on size) and a CD wallet (about $2 to $10) loaded with free utilities you can find here. However, it’s ideal to have a complete kit with a laptop, blank CDs, thermal paste, various cables and a cable tester.

Business Cards Your business card is your client’s first impression of you. Your business card is representative of your business and this is why it’s strongly recommend that you have your business cards made professionally. Those tear off make-at-home cards just scream ‘amateur’ or ‘fly by night’ business. Of course, any business card is better than no business _____________________________________________________________________________________


http://www.technibble.com/computer-repair-tools/

card but if you are really short on money, you could consider getting them professionally printed for free at a place like VistaPrint. Professionally printed business cards will cost you from $40 up, depending on the options. Uprinting.com has some excellent options for a very low cost, and the cards are very professional looking. They'll even send you the proof before it's printed so you can tweak it and make sure it's perfect. If you have someone design the card for you, of course the cost could be as much as $300, but it could be much less too. If you're already a professional graphics designer, you could save by doing your cards yourself.

Office Items You don’t need big wooden desks, special technician benches and new leather chairs when you first start out, or even later. It’s best to get office items as you need them rather than buying all of them outright. A computer, printer, mobile phone, an answering machine/service and some writing material is all you need for a small home business. Getting a smartphone or a tablet is a good idea for those jobs where you need something quick and portable to search online for error codes and solutions.

Web Hosting If you happen to have a website, do not host it on a free host. Most free hosts only allow for a lame domain name like yourbusinessname.freewebhost.com. Many of them are ad supported so as you are trying to sell your services, your competitors ad is on your site too. Additionally, some free web hosts have been known to try to install malware and potentially unwanted programs (PUP) from their sites, and you don't want your customers complaining that your website gave them malware, implying that you intended to create business for yourself that way. With hosting companies like Hostgator which offer amazingly reliable services for $4.95 USD a month, you really should start out with a professional website. Check out TechSiteBuilder if you're not much of a programmer or web developer.

Business Forms And Finance/CRM Software Bryce continues, “While I didn’t have any business forms when I started my business (mine were created over many years), I wish I did as it didn’t take me long to run into bad customers who were happy with my work, but chose not to pay me. If I had a signed work order this wouldn’t have been a problem.” Make use of the Technibble Computer Business Kit when you start your business. Just one bad customer that won’t pay your $60 charge (even though you have a signed work order saying they are happy with your work) and you’ll wish you had more official paperwork in order before doing the work.


http://techsitebuilder.com/

https://www.technibble.com/products/computer-business-kit/

If you just need a simple billing software and records management, you might check out Freshbooks. The free version limits you to using 3 clients, which isn’t much, but the trial version will give you a taste of what is offered, and it’s a good trial ground if you’re still working out what your needs may be. For those who have their own web-hosting space and need an invoicing app, you could try Siwapp. It’s a free and open source customer management platform that covers invoicing, recurring invoices, and keeps good records for you as well as tracking taxes and other information. To see Technibble’s list of recommended CRM’s, please check out the Vendor List.

Reserve Funds You obviously will need to be able to feed yourself during the time it takes for your business to become busy so have enough money put aside for at least 6-12 months of survival. Don’t expect the phone to be ringing off the hook the moment you set up as it takes time for you to work out what advertising methods work and to build relationships with customers. In fact, sometimes the best time to start a business is when you are already employed elsewhere. You can work on your business on the side until you reach a point where your own businesses earnings are more than your other employment. This way its more like a careful transition than a leap of faith. Even if your current job is 9 to 5, you can use this to your advantage and be one of the few technicians in your area that do after hour’s work which is great for customers who also work 9 to 5 and cannot be at home during the day for a technician to repair it. There was a technician on our forums who was doing this and had the slogan "We work when you don’t". The main benefit of working part time at another job is that it gives you time to learn what sort of advertising works in your area without the fear of running out of money. But what if you’re already employed as a technician somewhere else? What about conflicts of interest?


http://www.freshbooks.com/

http://www.siwapp.org/

http://www.technibble.com/vendors/tech-crms/

Chapter 5: Before You Go Out On Your Own – Conflicts of Interest

Beware of Conflicts of Interest A member on our forums mentioned that he currently works as a technician for another computer business, while starting up his own computer business on the side. He was trying to do the right thing by keeping his clients and his employer’s clients completely separate, so he wasn’t poaching any clients from his boss. So there shouldn’t be a problem right? This is what you would call a “conflict of interest” which is defined as “when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other”. While I highly doubt this forum member would do anything to harm his boss since he already has taken the moral high ground in keeping the clients separate; the potential is always there, even if it’s an unconscious decision. There are also “insider secrets” that this person could unconsciously. For example, let’s say that his boss had developed a system where they could always fix computers in a very short about of time (shorter than most) and was always cheaper than everyone else. This gives his boss a competitive advantage over everyone else in the town and since this technician had to made use this system while he was working for his boss, he is obviously going to remember it. Once this technician goes out on his own, I doubt he is going to purposely use a slower and less efficient method to fix computers when he already knows a better way. Now that there is a competing technician in town that going to do the exact same thing, the boss just lost his competitive advantage. This is why working for someone else as a technician and running your own business on the side is a conflict of interest. This technician would also need to take a look at his work contract to make sure there is no non-compete clause in there which prevents him from starting up at all. In order for this technician to do the right thing by his boss, it would be better for him to quit his job completely before he starts his business to avoid the conflict of interest – and if his work contract allows it. So, while working for someone else to gain experience and building up your business on the side are good advice separately, they are not good advice when put together. If it’s not a conflict of interest, how can you juggle your new startup while still holding down a full time job?


Chapter 6:How to Juggle A Computer Business While Working Full Time Technibble recently surveyed its readers and it was evident that a fair majority of those who happen to run computer businesses do so on a part time basis. That is, they hold full time day jobs and handle clients on nights and weekends. Everyone’s situation is unique. However, the intricacies of managing a fledgling business as a part time entity is anything but a traditional part time affair. Juggling calls, scheduling clients, and finding time for business upkeep is organized chaos at best. Motivation and a natural passion for your side business tend to overcome any stresses and pressures that go along with this lifestyle. Many of you face the same struggles to toe a fine line of meeting clients’ needs while still maintaining your commitments to a normal full time job. It’s not an easy task, but here’s a list of some techniques developed by experienced technicians over the years which hopefully can lend some insight for everyone else. They have been working extremely well, and can help you to find the sweet spot of managing a growing computer repair company while holding onto your full time day job.

1. You can’t please everyone. This is always easier said than done. No matter how hard you may try to meet the needs of everyone, there are and always will be individuals that cannot be satisfied. The biggest issue a small portion of new customers have is the fact that work cannot be handled before 4pm on weekdays. It’s an interesting dilemma to try and tip toe around. On one hand, don’t bring too much attention to the fact that you work another job during the day. On the other, you want to try and provide as much flexibility as you can for this person so as to not toss away a possibly great lead. Early on you might fret over losing even one client to the “scheduling quagmire.” But you can only bend so far to accommodate others due to your situation. If post-4pm weekday or weekend labor is not satisfactory, then they simply find another company to handle their needs. Be fair to yourself first and then schedule customers as time permits.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Help could mean a number of different avenues to offset a workload, but we’re focusing this statement on people power, plain and simple. Most new computer business owners tend to believe that they are invincible and can do near everything on their own. While you may


follow this mantra as well for the most part, you might consider slowly bringing on limited assistance. There are many relevant examples of how you can employ targeted assistance with certain functions. There could be skilled IT colleagues that to take on limited scope projects which are just too time consuming for you. A small team of younger helpers could run flyers in the neighborhood. You could get an intern to handle some of the graphic design and similar elements of company marketing that is better left to more skilled artistic eyes than your own. A good business owner can tackle everything on his/her own, but an even better one knows when and how to branch out for help.

3. Leverage the power of the ‘Cloud’. Love it or hate it, the cloud has a lot to offer a busy entrepreneur. Here at Technibble, we’ve espoused the benefits of Google Apps and Zoho in previous writing, but we can’t stress enough how important these tools have become in allowing Techs to manage an increasingly busy workload. Have you tried Google Voice for communications? Zoho Books and Freshbooks are great accounting systems that will help you to manage your finances from your computer or device. The tools are out there; you just need to find what works for you and give them a try. Chances are there is some mixture of tools that can suit your particular needs at a lower cost and higher satisfaction over what you may be using today.

4. Breaks and lunch are your best daytime friends. Since encroaching on company time (your day job, mind you) is neither kosher nor advised, responding to clients has to be carefully crafted around breaks and lunch time. Lunch break provides the best opportunity to make any mid-day calls that need returning or inquiries that need to be handled. Depending on your own day-job schedule, your break times may be more fitting. Any way you look at it, you CAN make it work to your advantage. If breaks are not enough for your situation, consider handling the first batch of client communication before you get to the office. Spend a half hour or so before you go to the office to clear out your inbox of any top of the morning emails. This is beneficial because it gets your timely messages in front of clients first thing, and you can then take lunch break (or other breaks) to respond as needed. By the time you get off work, you should be able to manage email to the point where any needed appointments are scheduled before you are even finished at your day job. It’s a fine-tuned process that takes time to perfect, but once you get a mental mindset going, it becomes a well oiled machine.


5. Don’t actively market to business clients so long as you cannot handle 9-5 work. Many techs out there in this predicament know full well that they cannot handle the 9-5 needs of business customers, yet they still advertise themselves actively in this field. Do yourself a favor and step back to ask whether this is helping or hurting your own company image. You might want to consider holding off from actively promoting your new business through flyers, emails, or any other means that may attract a bevy of business clientele. For the few that land in your inbox, hopefully they are generally low maintenance customers that don’t have time sensitive 9-5 operations. You could work with them on night and weekend scheduling, if that could work. Address your own situation as needed and be careful how you approach this topic. Try to never turn down any business referrals from current clients. Since referrals are on a higher level of trust with you before the conversation even begins, addressing your situation and schedule limitations should be easier. If you can incorporate a policy like this, you are bound to still grow a small business client base that can be tamed.

6. Consider your day job as a “word of mouth” gold mine. Who said working a full time job was necessarily a bad thing? You likely have a decent paycheck, good benefits, and a set schedule that is predictable. All the while, you can work on growing your side business to the point where it can take over as your primary means of income after a nurtured start. While there are pitfalls of having to relegate your side business to nights and weekends, here is one upside that many forget: the word of mouth gold mine that is sitting at your feet. Word of mouth clients are hands down the best customers that routinely establish long term relationships with your new business. Why is this recipe so formidable for any new business? Simply put, any referrals you get at work likely have a starting point of trust that is otherwise tough to obtain. These are the people you work and interact with daily – they are bound to see you in a different light than any average listing on Google. Acknowledge this and build on it. Treat these word of mouth customers extremely well and they will pass your name around with little effort. While some workplaces may limit such inter-office dealings, just be sure to scope out your company’s policy to ensure you aren’t stepping on any toes.

7. Set appropriate expectations for clients and yourself. Don’t promise the moon if you can’t deliver. More likely than not, working a full time job will adversely delay the tight turnaround that you could otherwise promise to a customer. You


have to recognize this and be careful when scheduling both one time visits and longer projects. Many times you might find yourself offloading work to weekends just to manage a busier than usual personal life during the week. With the added responsibility of running a business comes the flexibility to be able to schedule your time. 8. Most importantly, make time for yourself. Take vacations once in a while. Spend time with the family or significant other. Many technicians start up their own business so they can spend more time with their family or do more outside of the 9 to 5 job. Don’t let your business take over that time that it was supposed to give you for other matters. Set aside time for a hobby or interest that you do on a regular basis. Some suffer from the entrepreneurial syndrome of working 24/7 but the human body cannot sustain full time work mode every waking second. Your clients and business will still be around tomorrow if you take a few hours for yourself today. Step back from playing boss for a little; your body will likely thank you for it. There is no exact science for how a part time computer business has to be run, and these observations and techniques are merely learned from experience. The bumps in the road are what make a new venture all that more exciting.

9. Keep Up With Technology Make sure you keep on top of the latest consumer technology and devices, as well as the best tools for your work. Invest some time in researching newer and better ways to fix things, and play around with the popular apps of the day so you can help out if someone needs training. Because the face of consumer technology is constantly changing, that means as a Tech, you will be a perpetual student of technology in order to excel at your career. We talked briefly about whether you would use a DBA or maybe name your company using your last name or perhaps ‘Joshua’s Computer Repair’. Next we’ll offer some tips on naming your new business.


Chapter 7: 6 Tips For Naming Your New Business

What’s in a name? A whole lot, in fact. And this very question is one that puzzles computer business owners time and time again. It’s something that prospective business owners are thinking heavily about. Naming your computer repair or tech business is an art that requires some careful thinking, researching, and consideration. Too many computer repair professionals who want to start a business want to make the golden rookie mistake of naming the business after themselves, or tacking a limiting description behind their name to create something along the lines of “Mike’s Computer Repair.” Starting your new business on the right footing, with a solid and descriptive yet short name will leave an imprint on potential clients and customers, which will create a lasting connection to your brand. While steering towards a name that relates to technology is natural for the computer repair field, boxing yourself into something that will forever cast your business in a single light is definitely not advisable. What’s the perfect recipe for a new name?

#6: Don’t Name Your Business After Yourself This is definitely one of the cardinal rules. Naming your company after yourself is a dangerous proposition. It requires little thought, allows you to build off your good name in the industry, and is likely easy to trademark unless you have a very common name. But naming after yourself has a lot of downsides. For example, if you name your business after yourself, you would be forced to correct everyone that mispronounced your name. This is a huge potential problem. Another reason you should stay away from using your namesake for your business name is because distancing yourself from your company at some point will become very tough to do. If your business becomes known well enough and has the brand recognition, you may be able to retire or sell it without issue. But the chances are more likely, that unless you grow to corporate size, future owners may be inclined to rename the business. Long story short: don’t paint the future of your business on your own name. The days where the Fords and Sears of the world can build and thrive are almost over. And even in practice, the biggest tech companies have no mention of their founders in their names – Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.


#5: Don’t Let Your Name Frame You Into a Box Another big mistake that is being made in our industry is that so many technicians want to pin their futures on one aspect of what they do. Or, they name their companies on what got them into the industry, without a forethought about what they may be doing 2-4-6 years down the road. Computer repair isn’t going anywhere in the next five or ten years. But perhaps twenty years from now? There may be a time where computer repair turns into what TV repair folks are considered now: a legacy, dying breed. It’s not something I want to see, but it’s inevitable with current trends moving as they are. The bulk of our business today is not fixing dead PSUs or replacing hard drives. Much of this is from a general upward trend of technical reliability getting better and better. In turn, our commercial consulting, managed services, and cloud services are booming to the point where traditional computer repair makes up a mere 15-20% of what we do now. Do you want to posture your business for the future? Leave “computer repair” or “pc repair” out of the name entirely. Use a generic phrase entailing technology or consulting or something that doesn’t box you into a single service offering. My own company uses the tagline “Technology Services” which allows us to tell others what we do, but keep it broad enough where we can move into other offerings as the industry changes.

#4: Can’t Get the Dot Com? Don’t Sweat It Too many technicians are so concerned about grabbing the dot com for their name that they waste oodles of time wrenching over decisions about a name. While this is a nice to have, it is not necessarily a requirement. The days where not being on a dot com domain was considered heresy are long over. Some like Jay Baer are even going as far as saying that domain names are irrelevant already, in light of how connected the web is without having to memorize a domain. You shouldn’t base an entire name decision off whether you can get the dot com for it or not. Many industry colleagues are very happy with .us, .org, .info, .net and other less common names, and they haven’t lost any business over it. Most people these days aren’t getting 404 blank pages when they type in the incorrect domain, or took a wild guess when trying to find you. What browser these days doesn’t use an integrated search bar/address bar combination? Google and Bing are so entrenched in people’s lives and lexicon these days that even a mistype only takes a Google search to iron out.

#3: Long Names Stink in More Ways Than One The biggest problem with long names? They usually come with long domain names unless you are willing to butcher your name into hyphenated pieces, or just shorten it altogether.


For example, there’s Ubiquiti Networks, makers of the Unifi access point, who use the shortened ubnt.com domain name. It’s not really an ideal approach. A name should be coupled with a similarly comparable domain name that follows the flow of your namesake. Domain name length and memorability comes into play when people have to type your email address into the address bar of their email client. For instance, a law office transitioned from an ungodly long .com domain over to a cleaner, descriptive .us domain which they have been very happy with. Aside from letting their customer base know about the change, going forward, this is making business much easier for them. Think about all of the other marketing material you may want to make for your business. Shirts? Business cards? Handouts? The longer your name, the smaller you can blow up that logo and/or name on marketing material without eating too much space. Shorter names allow for you to incorporate the name into a logo. This graphic goes on the website, business cards, shirts, and everything else that faces a client. Using a shorter business name means it is clearly visible in nearly any print or digital scenario.

#2: Can You Trademark Your Name If you Wanted To? Many computer repair techs never think twice about it, but did you know that if you want to trademark a name down the road, you need to have no possible issues with overlapping trademarks by others in the country? This is especially true in the United States. While starting out small and fresh may not have trademarking on the top of your priority list, it’s something that may become necessary down the road as you grow. As you start to bring on workers, gain more business, and potentially expand into multiple locations, you want to be able to secure your business branding as the sole authority that can profit from your established likeness. Choosing a name that has been either trademarked, or a close derivative has been trademarked, puts you into a tough position for winning a trademark down the road. Two good avenues to use in researching who else may have your name in the United States are Trademark office and the USPTO. While the searches you can do on these public databases are relatively simple, you would likely want to invest in a small business lawyer who can help do an exhaustive search across the country to ensure you aren’t stepping on any other trademarks that may exist. If your company does grow to the size of something much greater than what you have on the outset, you will be able to guarantee that no one else can profit from your sweat and labor.

#1: The Web 2.0 Name Craze Is Over Flickr? Twitter? Pownce? The deluge of media-centric Silicon Valley names that are iconic of many large tech brands (or former brands, in the case of Pownce) are just as risky as the businesses they represent. They’re meant to be catchy and sweet, but without a huge marketing budget to educate the public, they can ruin your brand’s publicity uptake (especially locally) since they are tough to remember and hard to spell, among other things. _____________________________________________________________________________________


It may be interesting to tag your business with one of these Web 2.0-ish names, but you will be constantly questioned about the name by clients; they will have a tough time remembering your email address; and the pronounciation name-game will be a never ending problem. Leave the goofy names for Silicon Valley. They have the marketing prowess to take the kind of risks us small guys shouldn’t bother with.

So, What Does a Good Name Look Like? I looked no further than the Technibble forums to peruse for some names that resembled clearly distinctive brands. While asking someone for an opinion on a name is almost as risky territory as debating the merits of antivirus program choices, the following names follow many of the principles outlined above. Codegreen Technology: A small computer repair company out of Canada. The primary company name doesn’t scream technology, but the ending makes this decidedly clear and succinct. Clever in every way. Kudos to whoever coined this one. Pacific Computer Services: Another computer consulting firm out of California. The play on the coastal term Pacific which ties into the area of the country they are from was very ingenious, short, and memorable. Easy to remember and write, yet easily descriptive of a business. Calm Computing: A very catchy tech-driven name that doesn’t pin them down into a 1990'sgeekiness. The term computing is very open ended and can mean computers, training, software, etc. Their logo is to the point and also thought out nicely. Their domain could have been shorter, but that aside, the name rocks. Data-Medics: Using a term like Data in a name would otherwise be a non-starter for many, but the fact that they are a business focused on data recovery bends the rule a bit. It’s a playful combination that speaks to what they do, yet doesn’t paint them in an overly technical light. LifelineIT: Here’s a well done name mashup – the problem is that so many computer repair shops tend to have a love affair with the words “PC” or “tech” and these are way overdone and so 1990's. This company took a word that would otherwise be associated with healthcare and mashed it with a familiar term for our industry, “IT.” It flows well, isn’t that long, and is quite memorable. It just works. Picking a good name isn’t that hard with the right research. Get some insight from those around you, and look for names that have decent domain name options available. Keep your brand relevant for the long term by sticking with the best practices mentioned above, and you will definitely avoid the hassle that comes with changing a name down the line. It’s a pain in the rear; just ask anyone who has had to go through it for their company. _____________________________________________________________________________________


If you’ve already gone through all of this and already have your name and all associated issues taken care of, what about getting a logo designed and having some business cards printed?

Chapter 8: How to Get a Killer Logo and Business Card

Your logo and business card are a huge part of your business. It is the image that represents you and often people will even choose a technician over another based on their logo or business card. Our techie “I can figure it out” mind wants to create our own business cards but we need to be careful, as this can be like your clients’ 16 year old cousin thinking he can fix your clients’ computer. “How hard can it be?” If designing isn’t your thing then you definitely should get a professional to make one. In this article we’ll tell you how to get one made at a decent price and have hundreds of custom-made designs to choose from. Traditionally, you would find a designer and they would ask you a some questions. In a few days they will present you with a handful of logos to choose from. What if the designer is flaky and takes a long time to get the work done? What if they are fast but you don’t like their design style? If you don’t want to go ahead with any of their designs? You will most likely still have to pay them for their time just as you would if you diagnosed a computer but the client didn’t want to go ahead with the repair. What if there is a place where you can get a logo made cheaply for around $200-350 USD and you have hundreds of designers presenting designs to you? At this place you only have to pay if you are happy with the design. This place is called 99Designs.com and it is a place where you to run a contest for designers to create your logo. The prize money is the $200-350 and the winner is the designer who made the logo you want to use. To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, here are some past logo contests for computer repair businesses: http://99designs.com/search?q=computer As you can see, there is some great talent on this site. The key to getting exactly what you want on 99Designs.com is to: 1. Give as much detail as you can in your creative brief – In this brief you may mention that you are a computer repair business and the angle you are going for is a “young and funky” look or perhaps “serious suits and ties”. You may want a single shape and text logo like Best Buy’s Geeksquad, or a logo with text below it like Circuit City’s (now defunct) Firedog. You may like the shiny web 2.0 look or perhaps something traditional and serious. Whatever you have in mind, let them know. The more comprehensive your creative brief, the better the logos will match your businesses vision and needs.


http://99designs.com/search?q=computer

2. Set your budget and pay a fair price – The bare minimum prize money for a logo competition is $204 USD and the maximum is as high as you want. Keep in mind that the more prize money you offer , the more entrants you get which means more choices and possibly higher quality work since some extremely skilled designers may not waste their time in lesser paying contests. 3. Work with the designers and provide constant feedback– Once you have submitted your contest you will begin to see entries coming in within a few hours. 99Designs provides a 5 star rating system where you vote on the designs you like and this will let the current designers know whether they are on the right track or not. You should rate the submissions early and often because future entrants will create new designs that are similar to the ones that you rated highly. Sometimes it is clear that certain designs or designers will never get there so you can forcefully remove them from the competition. 4. Get opinions and choose a design – Once the competition comes to an end (usually after 7 days), you may get overwhelmed trying to decide on a logo when there were hundreds of submissions so get someone else to help you decide. Your logo will be seen by many people and different designs can mean different things to each person. Once you pay the designer the prize money they will send you the completed design along with the copyright to the original artwork. Make sure you get the source files such as the mutli-layered PSD’s rather than a flat JPG file. This way they can be edited or resized at a later time with no reduction in quality.

Business Cards Once you are happy with a designer, you could ask them to create a business card design for you or you can start a new competition (another $204+) asking other designers to create a business card using your new logo.Make sure the text isn’t too small so people who don’t have perfect sight can read it. You can increase the chances of the client keeping your card by making it useful. I have seen some technicians print computer shortcuts such as copy and paste on the back of their cards. The client often sticks it to their computer and when that computer breaks down, your number is right there. You can also use your business card as a referral system. Leave a space where you can enter a clients name or internal ID and explain to them that they and their friend can get 10% off their next service if they give one of your cards to them. If you write on the card “produce this card for a 10% discount” the new client is more likely to show you and the client that referred them will get the credit they deserve.If you are charging $60 for your first visit to that clients location, 10% is only $6. If you do a good job, you will keep that client for a very long time and make much more money off them. Isn’t that worth the $6 discount? Now you’ve got your logo and business cards taken care of. We talked a bit about getting a toolkit together and stocking a few things, but what about parts markup and warranties?


Chapter 9: Markup, Warranty, and Promotional Material

How Much Markup Should You Place On Parts? On average, you should mark up your parts about 30% more than the cost you bought it for. 10% of that goes to tax, leaving you with 20% profit. However, you don’t use a 30% markup for everything you sell. On some lower priced items your markup may be as high as 100%. For example, if you bought a special cable for $2.50, you will probably sell it for $5. If you were to use the 30% markup for everything, the lower priced items would just not be worth it. It takes time for you to go out and buy them, they take up space in your workshop and they could potentially lose value. In any case, regardless of whether you are selling it for 30% extra or 100% extra, your prices are usually below the price of the Big Box stores anyway. There are some Computer Technicians who will use 30% for everything, regardless of what it is. There are also many Computer Technicians who use a scale, for example: Accessories: 50-100% PC Hardware: 30% Peripherals: 25% Software: 10% There are also other Computer Technicians who will sell their computer parts at cost price citing that they make money on the service. After doing some research on these technicians, it seems that their general viewpoint is that they feel that it is taking advantage of the client. Those Computer Technicians should do whatever makes them feel comfortable since it is their business, but one of our forum members “Appleby” said it best in a forum post:

Look you are in business and so is every other store you walk into. Do you think the grocery, hardware, clothes or car part store sell their inventory at cost? Nope, they all mark their products up and some of them over 100%. Do you think your mechanic buys parts for you car and sells them to you at his cost? The lawn mower repair shop, A/C guy, plumber?None of them.And if they do, why? You don’t know what a muffler costs him. What I do stress out over is selling my parts at fair retail prices. For common stuff like routers, switches, etc. I sell at Staples prices since they are my only local retailer. So I try to match or beat their price. And do you know what? No one knows or cares. I tell people all the time that I’ve got XX here and Staples sells it for $5. They look at me like, “$5? Who cares?”.


If you do your homework and shop around, you’ll start finding ways to make ALOT of money on parts, all the while, still giving the customer a good fair price. Remember this: Sure your customer can go on eBay and buy the part they need, but they don’t KNOW what part they need. Plus, they will end up buying some off brand knock off in Hong Kong and it will take 5 weeks to arrive and then won’t be the right thing. You are making sure you are buying quality parts and getting fast shipping. Plus, as others have said, you are taking a risk….you take money out of your pocket to buy that part and set it on your shelf in the hopes that someone will come in and need it. You can’t do that for free. And if you are buying the parts on a “as-needed” basis, you still need to make money. It takes time and energy. Heck I could go on and on about this and the reason is, once I figured it out, I started seeing how much money I was loosing by not marking parts up. Plus the customers had NO idea nor showed NO gratitude for the money I saved them. They were expecting me to make money, so I should be. By the way, my goal is to make 50% mark up. That’s alot. Most items I can’t do that, but some smaller items like ethernet and USB cables, I might make 600% or more. Also, items like modems, RAM, hard drives etc can be bought for 30-60% less than Staples sells them for, so there is room for a nice mark up there sometimes.

How Long Should You Warranty A Part? Should You Provide A Warranty At All? Most Computer Technicians will warranty the part for as long as their supplier provides a warranty to them. Some Computer Repair stores keep themselves out of the warranty process by making the client deal with the warranty directly with the supplier. The problem with this is that the client will most likely find out how much you bought the part for because they will either need your receipt to do it, or the supplier may include it in a packaging slip. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you mark it up, it will probably annoy the client. The best thing to do is to do the warranty yourself on behalf of the customer. You can make sure they are looked after and there isn’t a bunch of back and forth phone calls when the supplier asks them for details about you. You can also turn the annoyance of the warranty process into an opportunity. A clients’ hard drive may have failed and you will have go through the warranty process for them for free, but the hard drive still needs to be installed into the computer and they are likely to need an operating system to be reloaded. You can charge them for this time since most hardware warranties will only cover the hardware itself. What if you need uncommon parts or specific parts? For instance, some networking hardware manufacturers require specific cabling for the warranty to be valid on their products. Where can you find these products?


Chapter 10: Technician Supply Resources

Whether you’re just starting up in the technician industry or have been a tech for years, having reputable technician supply resources that are cost effective is one of the most important parts of managing your business. There are hundreds, if not thousands of retail stores and online merchants who offer cables, hardware, and other supplies at a variety of price ranges. How can you be sure you’re getting the best prices and the best quality service from suppliers?

Avoid Consumer Retail Outlets for Basic Supplies If you use ethernet cable on many service calls and installations, and buy the cable at consumer retail outlets, you could end up paying $1/foot per cable or more, depending on the outlet. Monoprice.com is a great supplier for cable supplies, as the quality is excellent, the shipping is fast, and the prices are a third the cost you would expect to pay in a consumer retail outlet, or even less, especially if you purchase in bulk. They also have some very decent prices on hardware and other accessories. If you’re looking for other supplies, and there’s only one name you trust, that’s great. However, narrowing your search for supplies down to just one merchant can limit your profit margins, especially as newer merchants bring their retail presence online for buyers. Be open to trying newer suppliers with genuine positive reviews. Try Amazon.com for technician supply resources. Many merchants have great products for very low prices, and you can sort through them by their seller rating. Newegg.com also has some good deals, especially during certain holiday times. How do you know which products and merchants to trust? You can usually spot the paid reviews and the reviews that don’t accurately represent the item shown, so just ignore those. There are also often reviews based on a misunderstanding of the tool itself, or abusive use of the tool. For instance, on an ethernet cable tool, some reviews complained that the blades on the handle were obtrusive and cut your hands while using the tool. However, the blades could be removed with a screwdriver in less than 30 seconds, and the problem is solved, as the product comes with a handy cable cutter that works better than a set of pliers with blades between them. As your business grows, you may qualify for “Business-to-Business only” suppliers. These suppliers usually require accounting information and credit checks before they will open an account with you. There is a list of these B2B only suppliers as well as many great online suppliers available in the Computer Business Kit.


http://www.monoprice.com/

http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.newegg.com/

http://www.technibble.com/products/computer-business-kit-b/?utm_campaign=Technibble+Site&utm_source=Technibble+Startup+eBook

‘But I Don’t Have the Tools, Accessories, or Experience’ If you’re just starting up and don’t yet have the tools or connections or miscellaneous accessories for the job, don’t give up just yet. An initial search for tools at retail outlets may only show the higher priced tools from prominent supply chains and brands. Given the cost of those tools, it may seem easier and less risky to keep buying supplies at retail outlets and just billing the customer for the cost of the supplies, as high as they are. However, if you were to search Amazon.com for the same tools, you’ll come across a great many tools of the same quality for a much lower price. Be sure to check reviews and merchant rating, however, as you want to make sure you get the right tool, and one that is decent quality. For miscellaneous accessories such as Cat5 plugs, connectors, or small hardware parts, be sure to read those reviews. Some connectors are exceedingly cheap, or require modification in the form of bending or breaking parts off in order to use them properly. You’ll see similar quality in some of the lower price ranges as well, and that’s something to watch out for. However, there are many merchants that are both reliable and trustworthy, and offer great products at prices you won’t find in the consumer retail outlets. It’s often said that search engines are your best friend. Maybe your strength is in software or hardware repairs and installations, but you’ve never dealt with cables or wireless networking. Often, your time is well worth just doing a bit of research into these areas, and it will be cost effective in the end for you to do these jobs yourself rather than rely on consumer retail outlets to provide the supplies ‘ready-made’ for you. Not only will it impress the client that you can do everything yourself, along with your usual expertise, and the cost in fuel and supplies will be much less, but will probably vary depending on your previous tech supply resources.

Stay Open to New Merchants and Products If you’ve been in the tech industry for years, maybe you have certain names you trust, and that’s great. However, the internet is an ever changing landscape, with new vendors and high quality products being marketed on a daily basis, offering top quality tools for lower prices. Often, these merchants just want to get their product out into the market for reviews, and it’s a great way to get top quality products for a lower price. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of the current offerings online and be open to newer vendors. Do a search every once in a while for tools you use often on the job, and check out any new deals that may allow you to replace a current old tool with a lower cost high quality replacement. Create an email address just for technician tools and services, and subscribe to newsletters and services that often send out emails on tools, discounts, and new offers. Spend a little time each week going through them. Even if you don’t find something right away that you need, you’ll often come across things that you can recommend to your clients, and they’ll appreciate hearing about it from you, and the fact that you showed personal interest in showing them they could get what they needed at a discount, even when it brought no business for your services.


Making sure you’re being cost effective when it comes to tech supplies will go a long way towards streamlining your work process. Instead of dropping by the nearest retail store to get a cable for the next job and estimating how much you’ll need, you can just carry a bulk supply of cable with you, and only use as much as you need, leaving a majority of surplus for your next job. The cost in tools is often negligible. When you pass those discounts back to your clients in the form of lower prices, you’ll be much more likely to get repeat business and referral business than the technicians who only rely on consumer outlets and pass very high prices on to their customers. Your marked up prices will still be lower than your competition’s. Well, now you have all your tools, your supplies, your business name, logo, business cards, and you’re all set to jump to being self-employed. Being self-employed brings a new set of challenges, because you will have to juggle your current responsibilities as well as focus on getting your business off the ground, which is often a struggle with many new startups. If you have a family, how can you successfully juggle both?


Chapter 11: Juggling a Family and a Tech Business Start-Up

Your day job obviously plays a huge part in how you run and manage your business day to day but nothing comes close to the part your family and loved ones play in shaping it now and in the future.

Wait, I’m not married and I don’t have children! Ok, well if you’re not quite there yet then please don’t disregard the article right away, you may still have parents, friends, housemates, boyfriends, girlfriends, any individual you care deeply about, they all play a pivotal role in your future which will impact on your business. Ric Chapman, contributing writer at Technibble.com, had this experience to share regarding his first business startup:

I rarely talk about my first attempt at starting a business and that is going some years back now, I try to dodge the subject because I’m somewhat embarrassed about the reasons that caused its early demise. I managed to get it off the ground but it came to a very sudden and abrupt stop for the simple reason that I didn’t think about my family and include them from the very beginning. When I came about the idea of starting a computer repair business I began by playing with ideas in my head, considering the possibilities envisioning my work and the success that I might one day be able to achieve. From the outset my one defining goal was to provide a stable additional income for my family therefore reducing debts and eliminating stress caused by lack of money. The ultimate end goal was to remove any need for my wife to work in the future, allowing her to concentrate on the upbringing of our daughter and have the necessary means to choose exactly what she wanted from her life and ultimately we’ll have provided a solid start for our growing family. On the back of that dream I was doing something I loved day in and day out and visualizing this perfect scenario spurred me forward at a ferocious pace. The pace ultimately drove a wedge between me and my family who never saw me, a few days a week I only got to see my little girl in bed sleeping. Plans I never discussed, my wife knew little of my whereabouts as I wasn’t in the habit of discussing it and I didn’t answer my mobile whilst with a client. But it didn’t stop there, I missed appointments, forgot about nights out with friends and family and isolated myself entirely whilst I continued to delude myself that this self sacrifice was all for the greater good.


If things got too much I took a few minutes out to think about my end goal and why I was doing this, and this served to excuse my behaviour, at least it did from my point of view. As to be expected things came to breaking point where my home life literally fell to pieces. This was an exceptionally difficult time for all of us and something I would hate to happen to any of my peers, starting a business is not just about you and the business but everyone around you and they all play a part.

Ric sums up his experience and the lessons learned by continuing:

When writing up your initial business plan be sure to include your significant others, this doesn’t have to be everyone, just your most significant spouse would do. Wife, Girlfriend, Boyfriend, whoever you spend the majority of your life with. They not only help spot the gaping holes and mistakes but the constructive criticism well help fine tune your plan to almost perfection and to discuss any family related issues that may result from your amazing ideas of being out until midnight fixing PCs. The key goal here is that immediately your plans are out in the open and the people you care about are involved from the onset. Plan with objectives in mind. Throughout your business and especially at the beginning you should be planning both long term and short term objectives to help manage and improve. If some of these actions require short term anti-social behavior then family and friends will be accepting of your absences if they know the reasons behind it. For example a website might require your full attention for a few weeks to get it off the ground, just be sure to let your loved ones know, take a break every now and then and be sure to make up for it when your done before moving onto your next objective. Share your plans on large purposes. Business purchases can often be considered business related and more often than not my wife really couldn’t care less about the purchases I need to make. When businesses are starting out the larger purchases may have a direct impact on the personal accounts. For example paying up front for equipment needed for a job only to suffer delays in getting paid. This unplanned knock on effect can negatively impact your home life. If you have any upcoming large purchases that have the potential to cause problems, it’s better that they’re discussed with those that may be affected. The nature of our job dictates periods of time where we’re constantly on the move bouncing from customer to customer. When those movements occur inside sociable hours such as evenings and weekends it can be very frustrating for others who care about you or rely on you to not know where you are. The biggest change I made going forward was being very transparent in my movements and made myself contactable during work, it’s as easy as sharing an Outlook calendar. My wife connects to my Office 365 account via her phone to have access to the calendar


reminders, she now always has a good idea of where I am and I quickly learned that customers don’t mind you answering your phone. Calls are short and sweet, my significant other is a lot happier.My family went through a period of time where we had to share a car which means when I’m working, they are probably stuck at home or wherever they wanted dropping off until I was finished. On this one reason alone it is immensely important to discuss what you’re doing at all times. Don’t run off to do a job and leave your family stranded! Some jobs have the potential to be lengthy, troublesome and costly and usually with a little thought and care these can be foreseen. Discussing them with your wife you can be sure that this potential issue is out in the open and you can consider the concerns of your family or loved ones before you decide to go ahead with the job. Bouncing the problem off someone else is another invaluable reason and just the act of discussing it alone may completely change your view on the job or client. Make time for family and friends. This is perhaps the most obvious one but we’ll add it for completeness, working 18 hour days, 7 days a week is a sure fire way to making money and speeding up business success. It’s also the quickest way to alienate your family and friends and put you in the hospital before your time. It just isn’t worth it, take time out, not only will your business grow but you’ll have your health and people to share it with. The biggest mistake to make in this industry is to have a set day or period of time to socialize or spend time with the kids, business can be quite erratic and time with customers can overrun. Not only that but other people can and will change plans regularly delaying the time before you’ll see them or spend quality time. When you have a spare few hours to kill, don’t waste it, take the family out for a meal or drop in on a friend. You’ll often find yourself having much more fun this way and time truly turns into quality time. The biggest advice I can give to improve your relationship with your family and friends is to involve them fully. When my wife asked to be involved it’s fair to say that I was a little apprehensive, she ended designing all my documentation, business cards and ultimately my logo and has saved me significant time, money but aside from that we got to spend a lot of time together. Being a qualified accountant she often assists me with my lack of accounting abilities, she has been invaluable in building my business and keeps me encouraged. My daughter is 3 and overly interested in my workshop at home, the result now is that I give her child safe items, a laptop and give her a place at my desk. We’ve had some wonderful times and I’m completing my goal in making her a technical genius much to the dismay of wife, well I can’t please her all the time.

We’ve considered all the basics for getting your new computer business up and running, but there are some pitfalls you’ll have to watch out for.


Chapter 12: Most Common Beginner Mistakes for New Computer Businesses

Charging Too Little We cover this a lot at Technibble and it’s one of the most common mistakes. There are many young computer technicians believe that they can beat their competition by having lower prices but don’t realize the costs of running a real computer repair business. There are taxes, ongoing advertising costs, and depreciation in your cars value, petrol, aging stock, business insurance and licenses for software. There is also another side effect of having very low prices and that is you attract cheap clients who want more for less and will eventually consume most of your time yet you will be making little money. Also, once you raise your prices to something more sustainable these clients most likely won’t have any loyalty towards you because they will always be looking for the cheapest price.

Pirated Software Or Inappropriate Licenses It is extremely risky to use pirated software or inappropriate licenses on both your business computers and your clients computers. Not only is it unethical, but it is dangerous for your business because your competitors can take you out with one phone call to Microsoft, Adobe or any of the other big brands who go after pirates. Even if you don’t have any competitors in your area, all it takes is one angry client to report you. You also need to make sure what you use in the repair business is for commercial use and not ‘for personal use only’ per the developer’s license.

Not Having Business Insurance A lot of new businesses skip on having business insurance because of the costs involved. This can be a very dangerous move because you are more likely to make mistakes in your early years than you are in your later years. There are many factors involved in calculating the cost of insurance such as your location and the sort of clients that you deal with, but you can get good insurance for somewhere between $200 – $500 USD per year. Shop around for a good price using both local insurance agencies and online brokers such as InsuranceForTechs.com and TechInsurance.com

Getting In Over Your Head Just getting started in the repair business, you’ll end up having jobs in front of you that will put you in over your head. While you may be able to do the job, if anything goes wrong, you can be sued into oblivion. Know your limits and don’t bite off more than you can chew.


http://www.insurancefortechs.com/?utm_campaign=Technibble+Site&utm_source=Technibble+Startup+eBook

http://www.techinsurance.com/?utm_campaign=Technibble+Site&utm_source=Technibble+Startup+eBook

Learning On Clients’ Computers This mistake goes hand in hand with the above “getting in over your head”. If you brought your car into a mechanics garage and found out that their mechanic was learning while fixing your car, wouldn’t you be upset? If you don’t know what you are doing, hand it onto someone else. Of course, you need to learn somehow and there are many ways to do it without learning on a client’s computer. You could work under someone else for a while or if you are learning when you are young and penniless, find abandoned computers on the side of the road and turn them into test machines. If you damage any of them, you haven’t lost anything, and more importantly, you didn’t do it to a client’s machine. It’s not fair to charge clients for time spent learning how to fix the problem when it can easily be done in 5 minutes if you had known how. Of course, there are exceptions such as proprietary software which may often be outside of the scope of general repair work, but general system repair shouldn’t be learned on clients’ computers and billed as a service charge.


Chapter 13: A Personal Experience - How I (Finally) Quit My Day Job To Run My Computer Business

The following experience is from Derrick Wlodarz, a contributing author to Technibble.com:

Up until very recently I’ve led a double life, so to say. A double life that has spanned just over two and a half years already. No, I wasn’t a secret agent or anything intriguing (relatively speaking, of course; I genuinely love what I do.) If that were the case, computer repair probably wouldn’t be one of my greatest professional passions. However, I did finally make a life decision that I have yet to regret: I quit my day job working technology support & training for a local high school and took my computer repair & tech consulting company FireLogic full time. I’ve kept my primary day job on the sly here on Technibble for many reasons. Unless you took attention to the finest details of my writing, you probably would have never caught on that my various pieces here were based on a part-time computer business. To me, my side company had become a full time venture as soon as I realized that I had to bring on daytime help to cover customers I couldn’t handle due to my day job. The 14+ hour days just became too much. Wake, work at job 1, handle the side company, and do it all over again the day after – no matter how exhausting the routine became. FireLogic quickly grew from an experiment into a pet project, all the way to a semi-full time venture and now into my primary source of income. It wasn’t easy by any means, but if you’ve read this article thus far, you’re probably loaded with motivation to make the same necessary steps in your own life. I know many technicians on Technibble are in similar shoes. The forums are drenched with threads about the fear of quitting a stable job to be your own boss. I previously wrote a thorough piece on how to manage precisely that very conundrum of running a computer business on nights and weekends. But seeing that I finally bit my worries to the wayside and took the plunge, I can write with certainty that making the transition from a stable 9-5 job to your own computer repair company is not as untenable of a goal as it may seem. With the proper planning and preparation, especially in terms of customer relationship building, you too can bid farewell to the day job. Below are my insights in how I did it, looking back at my progression toward a self-sustaining computer repair business over a two plus year timespan. There’s no single formula out there for figuring out the “when” and “if” you are ready to make such a life change. My own experience is filled with many unknowns, much guessing, some good planning, and a lot of experimentation. But I will say that it was 100% worth it.


Honesty Builds the Best Customer Base One of the common things I read about in the Technibble forums is how prospective full-time business goers are unsure about how to build their customer base. Not only how to do so, but who to target when starting out. I’ve seen suggestions about every marketing gimmick in the book, but one overlooked aspect of the entire equation is a fairly concrete matter known as honesty. Would you rather have a customer list of hundreds of clients that do work with you only a single time? Or do you believe that having only 50 people who use your services consistently is a better long term bet? It’s not difficult to see that consistency is better then “one-hit-wonders” as I call them. The way to build a solid customer base for yourself is to merely run an honest operation that promotes word of mouth referrals above all. Make people keep coming back, and bringing others in, because they want to do business with you and not because they’re forced to. People have such low opinions about their cable and cell phone providers for this very reason. They don’t necessarily do business with them because they choose to; they’re roped into long term agreements that promote sub-par service over a given period of time. Don’t let your business function in this manner. I’ve previously written about my usage of the powerful word of mouth engine known as volunteer work, but there are many ways to garner a strong referral network with customers who value your honesty. Good customers usually provide even better referrals, and when you become known as a trusted source for computer repair needs, this will work wonders for your budding business in the long run. BE that competitive alternative to the big box stores, but DON’T sacrifice your morals or business ethics in the process. Customers see through the lines, and my company FireLogic has been growing rapidly on word-of-mouth from these very core ideals since day one. Don’t Set Arbitrary Dates For Making The Plunge I almost made this mistake a few times in the lead up to truly being ready to quit my day job. As a goal-driven being, I like to place timelines on the objectives that I value most in life. I tackled my college education in this manner along with the numerous certifications I’ve garnered over the last few years. Date driven goals keep motivation high and the entrepreneurial juices flowing. But when it comes to something as drastic as changing jobs, arbitrary dates are NOT the solution. Instead, focus on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative items when deciding on your transition period. One of the key factors in proving to myself that I was ready for this change was a simple business report known as the Profit and Loss Statement. My accounting product of choice (Zoho Books) allows me to easily check on these crucial numbers at any time with one click. Quickbooks and Freshbooks and similar suites offer similar tools. I’ve followed my “bottom line” net profit for about the past year, checking in on how much the company was improving on a month-to-month basis. It wasn’t a clear path upward, but on the average, I was eventually bringing in


as much or more than my day job on a monthly basis.

That’s one of the main factors to keep in focus when making this decision. Is my company bringing in enough money AFTER all expenses are paid to sustain (or beat) my necessary income level? If this trend stays consistent for at least a half year (preferably longer) then you can safely assume that the numbers don’t lie. But be mindful to take other factors into consideration as well. Are you gaining, and retaining, new customers? Is your average income per job staying consistent or rising steadily? Are you pulling in crucial new business customers (read: consistent recurring and loyal work)? Current numbers alone don’t tell the whole picture. There are a lot of life factors that don’t fit into a math equation or profit statement. Do you have hefty health problems that are being covered by the lofty insurance your day job affords? Are you getting married or having kids soon that will bring your monthly expenses up substantially? Do you plan on going back to school shortly – or similarly, will you be finishing school and having student debt hitting your doorstep every month? These are items which won’t show on your current expenses but need to be considered. And don’t discount the emotional factor. Your gut feeling STILL has a place in making big decisions. For me, the numbers all added up for many months but my gut feeling didn’t let me make the plunge until recently. Follow instinct; it’s there for a reason. Consider the Bigger Picture Over the Short Term Successes When I reference the so-called bigger picture, I’m talking about the overarching position of your company as a viable business if you were to quit your full time job today. Would you consider the customer base that you currently have enough to keep you busy to make ends meet? Keep in mind my valuation earlier of solid business customers and what they mean for long term recurring revenue. If you’ve primarily been garnering residential customers that don’t utilize your services more than twice a year, you’ve got reconsider your prospects for keeping a fully functioning business afloat every month. If you don’t have the marketing or word of mouth prowess to have a steady flow of new residential clients, then step back and re-evaluate where your customer base needs to be at before you can afford to take a pink slip. Aside from what type of customers you are relying on also comes into question the type of work you are taking on. While traditional computer repair is still my company’s bread and butter, we are steadily branching out into more fruitful new ventures. I’ve previously penned about our growing position as one of the leading Google Apps specialists in the Park Ridge, IL (USA) area. Specifically, my Google Apps Trainer and Deployment Specialist certifications have been one of the greatest investments of time and energy in terms of ROI. We are landing training and support projects for Google Apps work at a rate of 3-4 large proposals a month. These are the kinds of new trends you have to be open to in order to survive in the new age of computer repair. If all you want to do is sit at a workbench and flip


machines day in and day out, making a business out of it full time may be something to really think over deeply.

Modern day techs are looked at moreso as full circle IT consultants, especially the ones that are thriving. Looking into new avenues of education and reaching beyond the safe scope of traditional computer repair are necessities for setting up the framework of a successful go-to business in your local area. Making the Jump is a Gradual Process – Don’t Force It Too many techs in the Technibble forums are so full of fear because they pin their foreseeable futures in the computer repair business on hasty calculations and simple-minded projections. They so badly want to take their businesses full time that they overlook all of the necessary bases I mentioned above and start forcing themselves into a corner. “I either make the switch next month, or I don’t do it at all.” This kind of act first, think second mentality is not the way to approach the self employment plunge because too many times, emotion becomes a leading factor above all else. When time becomes the biggest constraint in your decision making process, irrational thinking takes over and blurs the realities of making effective self change. There is no simpler way to say it, but the “time” to make the move will come when it does and you will know. You’ll be able to run the numbers and feel confident that your gut is leading you into the unknown with the proper intentions. Let the customer base grow, hire daytime help if you need to, and use your lunch breaks to handle customer calls – whatever it takes to build the most solid company you can before you let go of the tried and true. After a while I let my own path go forward in cruise control. FireLogic was steadily building a great customer list, and we were bringing in so much word of mouth that I finally knew the 14+ hr days were a clear sign that something had to change (not the other way around.) I didn’t hunt for the work after I left my day job. It came to me gradually, and I parted ways with my double lifestyle when the time was truly right. That time for me was June 29, 2012 and I have yet to look back. Running my own technology business is very gratifying, and most techs on this site can likely agree that if the inner motivation is there, the money will come naturally. The above formula has worked well for me, and I’m sure others in my former shoes can take some pointers to apply to their own situations. Making a full time computer business work is all about taking calculated risks with the right quantitative and qualitative measures in check. The computer repair field is not dead by any means. While we need to be creative in the way we approach the industry going forward, in no way is it the entrepreneurial fad of geeks from yesteryear. Its been working for my company, and taking the self employment plunge is one of the biggest votes of confidence I could ever give the industry at large.


You're probably eager to do everything perfect with your new business. You'll probably spend a lot of time brainstorming, writing things down, reading, researching, analyzing and… anything but getting started.

In the computer business world, sometimes the best thing to do is to just put your head down and do it. If you are very new to the business and are yet to get your first client, write down a simple list of what you do (eg. virus removal, hardware, software etc), give the local printers or newspaper a call right now and place your first ad. While it is perfectly natural to want to spend time thinking about your future business, especially when there is an element of risk, there comes a point where any more thinking becomes counter productive. Some people may have the attitude that they don’t want to lose money and therefore won't take the risk. No one wants to lose money, but you have to take risks in order to learn. You'll probably lose some money through ineffectual advertising, but you'll learn so much more through your mistakes than through your successes. To break out of the paralysis by analysis cycle, ask yourself the following: What do you absolutely have to do for your business to be a success? What is going to be difficult to change later? What could realistically go wrong? If we were putting out some marketing, we would have to list what we do, have decent prices and working phone numbers for our business to have a chance at success. We then need to make sure we get our phone number correct because that will be difficult to change later once everything is printed. The worst thing that could go wrong is that you waste a couple hundred dollars on ineffective advertising. So what?

Stop thinking about it and start doing it. Follow your dream to start up your own Tech business, but watch your step, think it through, count the cost, and make sure you’re ready. With a firm foundation and a firm grip on the skills and tools needed to succeed, you will find success in your endeavor.


How To Start A Computer Business · 2014-07-30 · How to Start a Computer Business Guide –...

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