Starting part-time comp. building business. Help and suggestions needed.

[Ward]

Greetings. It's been quite a while since my last post. Hope everyone is
well.

I'm kicking around the idea of starting a small part-time business
building computers (using AMD CPUs) for individuals and very small mom
and pop type of businesses. I've built a handful of computers for
myself and family members and I keep up to date with the latest
hardware, etc. I'm curious as to a few aspects of a business of this
type and I was hoping some of our might be able to help me. I also hope
this is the correct forum for this sort of a question.

First how do you price your machines? Do you mark up parts and also
charge a per hour rate? What do some of you use for your parts mark up
and hourly rate?

What is your average build time for a machine? Mine seems to be around
6-8 hours or so start to finish (including software and drivers).

How do you handle warranty issues? Do you offer a warranty at all? Do
you charge to find the problem, etc.

Another thing that seems to come up is how do you show the value of an
AMD chip vs. an Intel chip. I'd love to find a good comparison web
site that can compare say and AMD Athlon 64 4000+ and show me what the
equivalent Intel chip would be. How do you compare the mhz to mhz?

Anyway, thank you all in advance for your help with these issues. I
really appreciate all of your time and help helping me in my new
venture. Great people, great forums are these.

Sincerely,

Wardhawg

 

[jer4202]

Its a good idea, I even thought about doing it myself. The only thing
that prevented me from actually starting a business the taxes. When you
register it as a business, you would have to pay taxes on the parts you
order as well as charge taxes to your customers. If you advertise
correctly this shouldnt be a problem because you would draw alot of
business. As far as warranties go, I tell the customer up front that
the warranty is through the manufacturer only, but if a part were to go
out, I would be glad to replace the part if it failed if they were
willing to pay for shipping and it was still under warranty. Write
again if any other concerns, I would be glad to chat because it may
inspire me to do the same.

 

[Aceley]

The only thing that stopped me is people... the ammount of "it was like
that when i got it" sort of complaints etc would quickly ruin you...
Ive watched numerous small computer shops in the nearest town to me try
to build computers and set up home networks for people, and all those
small companies seem to have just lost interest or beomce uneeded with
the amount of people nowadays that know how computers work and what it
takes to build them yourself...
A computer repair company might be a good idea, youll get all the crap
of the day, but at least youd make money from noobs ;-)

 

[Ward]

As a part time gig, do you think you could just forget about the whole
tax part of this. You know, just do it on the sly for cash?

 

[jer4202]

O, I was under the impression that you were going to actually start a
business due to your first post "I'm kicking around the idea of
starting a small part-time business building computers" and businesses
pay taxes. But if you are gonna do it within your home or somethin and
not really be a registered business, then I think you should be fine.
Aceley has a good point about the people... I know from working at a
electronics store that the general public is ignorant to techonology
and think that if the computer is slow, it must be the person's fault
who built the computer or the last person who worked on it, ignoring
the fact that fact that spyware exist and that windows is an imperfect
OS. The believe that windows should work flawlessly, and if it doesnt,
its your (they're tech guy) fault. Personally I only build computers
for friends and those who I think have a slight underdstanding that
windows will get viruses and that has nothing to do with the quality of
my work. I think it would be fun and worst case scenario, you stop
doing it, as you said you prob wont pay taxes or become "official" so
there is nothing really to lose. Hope this helps

 

[Ward]

Indeed it does help. Yeah, by business I mean only from my home....for
now anyway. Maybe in the future, if all goes well I'd officially start
my own business. And pay taxes, etc. Gotta start somewhere if I'm
going to do it at all, so I'm gonna start small and slow.

Thanks and take care.

 

[Pdigmking]

Its a good idea, I even thought about doing it myself. The only thing
that prevented me from actually starting a business the taxes. When you
register it as a business, you would have to pay taxes on the parts you
order as well as charge taxes to your customers. If you advertise
correctly this shouldnt be a problem because you would draw alot of
business. As far as warranties go, I tell the customer up front that
the warranty is through the manufacturer only, but if a part were to go
out, I would be glad to replace the part if it failed if they were
willing to pay for shipping and it was still under warranty. Write
again if any other concerns, I would be glad to chat because it may
inspire me to do the same.

Actually the Taxes are no big deal. You get a tax number from the state
and then you don't pay sales tax when you by the parts, you only collect
sales tax when you sell the computer,and pay the state at the end of the
year. You don't have to set up a corperation, you can do it as a sole
proprietor Doing Business As account.

The big problem is profitablity. I mean, I have built my own computers
for ten years. The only reason I save money is becaue I'm not starting
from scratch. I re-use perfectly good video cards, hard drives, CD roms,
RAM, monitors, etc. when all you need is a new case, power supply, cpu,
and a mother board you can save a lot of money, you have a new computer
for less than $300.00. But if you build a completely new computer from
the ground up, it's gonna cost you $600+. You can buy a new computer at
big box store for $700- $1000, with hundreds of dollars of liscensed
software. If you go into the computer building business, that's your
competition. If you build a computer for $600, or even $400 (your cost
in parts) How much do you have to sell it for to make enough money to
make it worth while? If you know what your doing you can slap a computer
together in an hour, but then you have to load software on it, make sure
it works, smooth out any conflicts etc. And then there's the service of
it. Your competing with outlets that sell three year warrantees, and
service the stuff. Back when you couldn't get a decent computer for less
than $1,200 there were a lot of little shops and guys around building
computers and selling, them, you could make $3-$400 per computer at those
prices. I know three guys that used to do it, and they're all out of
business now. I mean what kind of computers are you gonna build? Are
gonna do high end stuff, bargin stuff, or custom build them. If you
custom build stuff your always dealing with parts that your not familiar
with, you'll have compatibility problems and what not and spend hours
making them work. And service will still be a hassle because even if you
only offer the manufacturers warranty, you still have to diagnose the
problem so you know which part to send in, you can't just start replacing
stuff until the thing works because that may take weeks or months. And
then there's advertising expenses....

I mean you do the math, but use the best numbers, and really really
figure out how many computers you have to sell and how much you need to
make per computer.

Personally, I think a better business would be cleaning up and tuning
computers that have gotten clogged with adware and other bugs. People
are getting $50.00 - $100 an hour to sit at the compuer and load and run
anti spyware and anti virus programs. There's no expense, you tell the
customer what to buy, and then you load it. A lot of people don't secure
their networks and computers. There was this story in the New York Times
a while back about people who's computers are so bugged up that they are
just buying new computers. Thing is, if they don't secure the new
computer it will just as useless as the old in six months anyways.

Let em buy whatever computer they want and you just charge em $100 to
secure it, att's my advice. You can even charge em to run updates and
what not every so often. Sell em service contract for a year.

Paul.

 

[Ward]

Great advice Paul. Thanks very much for the time.

 

[jer4202]

ya, maintaining is definately alot more profitable. Building is always
fun, but what I mainly do now is build for myself, play with it for
about 6 months to a year, then sell it to a little cheaper than you
bought the parts for. If you do this, you never have to buy a computer,
and the computer you do have is always up to date. I do that all the
time and it works out great. As far as diagnosis for problems, after a
while it becomes like a 6th sense. I help with network admin at a
business of 900+ computers, needless to say there are problems, and
after a while you can tinker for about 5 mins and figure out
(USUALLY)what the problem is. But Paul does have a good point by
telling you to kinda keep it safe and go for the repairs, you put up 0
dollars and gain all profit minus the cost of gas to get to the
computer. You can tell the person what software to buy, but I usually
put the free (legal) software on it because its quicker, usually takes
up less system resources and sometimes are even better than the ones on
the market. My opinion about things like antivirus is, you are probably
going to get viruses/spyware/etc.. so why pay for a program that will
still have leaks. I have been running the same format of XP for over a
year now and it runs faster than any Norton setup ive seen yet, and all
my defense programming is free.

 

[Pdigmking]

You can tell the person what software to buy, but I usually
put the free (legal) software on it because its quicker, usually takes
up less system resources and sometimes are even better than the ones on
the market. My opinion about things like antivirus is, you are probably
going to get viruses/spyware/etc.. so why pay for a program that will
still have leaks. I have been running the same format of XP for over a
year now and it runs faster than any Norton setup ive seen yet, and all
my defense programming is free.

Yeah, actually I was thinking after I posted a person could do it with
freeware. I actually purchased a firewall and antivirous software for the
PC I use for business (I'm a photographer) but I admit I only did this for
piece of mind. I have used freeware before that, and actually still use it
in addition to the pay stuff. I run nothin but freeware on my laptop and I
seem to be well protected. Man, you could download Spyblaster, Adaware,
Spybot Search and Destroy, and free Zone Alarm, and you'd be set. Just
toss em on a Jump Drive and off you go for nothin. You run spybot and show
someone that they have 500 plus little critters on their hard drive and
they think your a god! Get people setup with Mozilla or Firefox (again for
free)instead of Explorer and they'll be 1000 times more protected than they
were before. Stop by once every two months to update the programs... see
weet deal.

Just for the sake of Karm though if I was doing this on a lot of machines
I'd have people donate five bucks or so to the programers that ask for
donations. It still wouldn't cost you anything.

Paul

 

[Ward]

Well first of all, thank you all for your thoughts on the subject.
What I think I've decided to do is repair. I'll also build some
computers on the side, but that won't be my main focus.

So with that said, can any of you offer an advivce for the repair side
of this? For example what would you suggest I come "armed" with when
visiting someones home or office to do a repair? Jump drive and cd
with what programs? Right off the top of my head I'd bring along fresh
versions of ad-aware, avg anti virus, portable firefox and normal
firefox, zone alarm...I'm out of suggestions.

What's in YOUR computer repair kit? Can flash drives run disk utilites
like anti virus, and spam programs?

Do you carry with you computer parts such as hard drives, power
supplies, etc?

Also, though I haven't looked in depth yet, can you point me to some
good help sites for just this type of information???

Thanks again for the help.

Ward

 

[dawg]

You really don't want your customers hovering around watching everything
you do if you can help it.
First off,they will distract you no end asking questions,second you don't
know how long it will take to repair.You can't hang around someones houise
for three hours then charge them if you were talking half the time.
I've been there and the best piece of equipment I bought is a PC carrying
strap(no kidding).
Best bet is to take the PC off premises when possible..

 

[djs0302]

Well first of all, thank you all for your thoughts on the subject.
What I think I've decided to do is repair. I'll also build some
computers on the side, but that won't be my main focus.

So with that said, can any of you offer an advivce for the repair side
of this? For example what would you suggest I come "armed" with when
visiting someones home or office to do a repair? Jump drive and cd
with what programs? Right off the top of my head I'd bring along fresh
versions of ad-aware, avg anti virus, portable firefox and normal
firefox, zone alarm...I'm out of suggestions.

What's in YOUR computer repair kit? Can flash drives run disk utilites
like anti virus, and spam programs?

Do you carry with you computer parts such as hard drives, power
supplies, etc?

Also, though I haven't looked in depth yet, can you point me to some
good help sites for just this type of information???

Thanks again for the help.

Ward

I would definitely add a data recovery program to that list. Some of
your calls may be from people who've accidentally deleted an important
file and they have no way to get it back. Also, I would buy a program
such as Ghost that would allow you to copy an entire hard drive. That
way in case you accidentally mess up someone's hard drive you'll be
able to restore it to it's previous condition. You may need to buy an
external cd burner to use Ghost in case one of your clients doesn't
already have one.

 

[Hackworth]

Well first of all, thank you all for your thoughts on the subject.
What I think I've decided to do is repair. I'll also build some
computers on the side, but that won't be my main focus.

So with that said, can any of you offer an advivce for the repair side
of this? For example what would you suggest I come "armed" with when
visiting someones home or office to do a repair? Jump drive and cd
with what programs? Right off the top of my head I'd bring along fresh
versions of ad-aware, avg anti virus, portable firefox and normal
firefox, zone alarm...I'm out of suggestions.

What's in YOUR computer repair kit? Can flash drives run disk utilites
like anti virus, and spam programs?

Do you carry with you computer parts such as hard drives, power
supplies, etc?

Also, though I haven't looked in depth yet, can you point me to some
good help sites for just this type of information???

Thanks again for the help.

Have to agree with dawg here. Don't even think of making house calls unless
it's just to pick up the machine to take back to your own premises or to
deliver (and possibly reconnect) the repaired machine. You will of course
charge an extra pickup and delivery fee, correct? ;-) Resist the
temptation to charge less than your time is worth or you won't last. Believe
me, your customers will still be getting a far better deal than they would
if they took their systems to the local mega-chain computer/electronics
store for repairs... and you need to remind them of that fact!

Other than that, the tools you've suggested as well as the data-recovery and
Ghost utilties that djs suggested should cover you just fine. One other idea
that could prove valuable is a complete set of boot floppies and CDs... you
can download them here: www.bootdisk.com The executables that you
download will make the individual boot disks for you. They also have an
enhanced FDISK that you can grab.

 

[JAD]

Have to agree with dawg here. Don't even think of making house calls
unless

There are MANY reasons not to take the machine to the shop. Most people will
pay an extra charge so they can make sure you don't see their porn
collection.;^)

 

[dawg]

Snip

Resist the
temptation to charge less than your time is worth or you won't last. Believe
me, your customers will still be getting a far better deal than they would
if they took their systems to the local mega-chain computer/electronics
store for repairs... and you need to remind them of that fact!

Have to agree here. It is a temptation to be a nice guy. But I got quotes
from another home pc service called the Geek Squad. They wanted around $250
to come to the hoise,install a HD and OS. I showed this to my customers.Even
I was shocked.

 

[crosenerd]

There are also many other issues removing someone's system from their
property... what happens if you are in a car accident while you're
transporting the system from their home to your place... Are you gonna
cover the cost to repair the system, and then what will your insurance
company have to say about it...?

Or what happens if you have the system fail completely while you have
it at your place, the customer could likely blame you for the problem.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[hdrdtd]

all good points.

along the same lines,,
what happens if you're at the customer's site and something happens while
you're working on thier system that causes data to be lost of one reason or
another.?
Do you have the customer sign something ahead of time that relieves you of
any resposnability for any data loss?

On the other side of the coin.....

taking the system back to the shops definatly has some advantages.
1. Murphey says that whatever piece of software or hardware needed to
complete the call, will be back at the shop no matter what or hown much you
brought with you.
2. working on a system back at the shop where it's quiet allows you to
concentrate much better.
3. Taking it back to the shop means to have a much larger selection of tools
and components to use while troubleshooting the problem.
3. Working on it back at the shop avoids the typical customer that keeps
asking 'what is that you're doing now.?
4. It also avoids the customer that keeps asking 'how much longer will it
take'?
5. It helps enforce the concept to the customer that it's broke and you
won't be able to use it for a while.

But....
1. doing the repair on site with the customer present allows you to ask the
customer questions about the symptoms, etc, while you try to track down the
problem.


All in all, getting into the PC home repair business requires about 30%
computer and troubleshooting skills, 30% communication skills, and 40%
people skills.

after working with computers for 30 years, and being in the PC
service\repair business in one fashion or another for the last 20 years, You
couldn't pay me enough to do home repairs.

But that's just an old fart getting old.

 

[Chris Hill]

all good points.

along the same lines,,
what happens if you're at the customer's site and something happens while
you're working on thier system that causes data to be lost of one reason or
another.?
Do you have the customer sign something ahead of time that relieves you of
any resposnability for any data loss?

Would probably be a good idea; I just use my people skills and try to
be as up-front with people as possible about what can go wrong. All
else fails and something does shoot craps, you apologize and charge
nothing. Happened to me once and I got lots more business from those
people. I much prefer to take equipment with me too, nothing worse
than needing to download a huge driver for something and having
dial-up internet as the only thing available at the customer's place.
Besides, I can cuss in private that way!

 

[JAD]

ahh the pleasures of owning a 'BONDED" business. With insurance's. A lost
data issue?, that's easy....do you have backups? NO? Let me teach about
that....for a charge. Its not anyone's fault for data not being backed up,
except the owner of said data.