Suggestions for a PC Home Tech Support Business? 165
RPGonAS400 asks: "I want to start my own small business in the evening and on weekends (after my day job) going into peoples homes for PC tech support. There has to be a need for this — I help enough friends out with their PC problems. I live in an area that has roughly 50,000+ people within 15 minutes of my home. The best business oriented tech support in our area charges $95/hour for hardware repair and $135/hour for software support. Options for home based PCs are quite limited here. Geek Squad (yuk!) charges outrageous prices. I am not sure what I will charge but I plan on having a minimum charge and then only charge for actual work done. If I have to learn how to fix something I either won't take the job or else not charge for my learning time. I am looking for suggestions for lots of things. Namely, rates, liability, insurance, equipment needed, waiver forms, tax issues, incorporation, local paper advertising, web site, etc. As you probably guessed, I have always been an employee and this is my first venture into small business. Thanks."
bank? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bootstrapping start (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If you must.. (Score:5, Informative)
Be prepared for lots of payment issues. You'll need to be able to accept credit card payments, check out the quicken site, they have an online store that will link in with your quickbooks install and they'll handle all the fraud issues for you. If you do market to the low end, parent is right, you'll have people slow pay/no pay, accuse you of 'hacking' them when they don't pay (that was a treat, guy basically wanted more free service under the threat of legal action), etc. Humanity is a cess pool, you'll be at the bottom when you're performing services in people's homes.
From experience... (Score:1, Informative)
I do tech support on the side, and find that it could in fact be incredibly lucrative, mostly based on being the only honest outfit in town. I'm also in a saturated market (3+ other franchises here), but being an individual, there's a lot of promise (no employees taking a chunk/no "head office" taking a chunk). I do excellent work (you'll have to take my word for it). I work by word of mouth only (no advertising fees), and I also work from home (no office rent). I give my clients my cell number (no secretary). I also charge on a sliding scale, depending on what the person can afford. I'll charge as little as $15CAD/hr if I'm visiting a client that obviously can't afford the service they need, but I often will be paid upwards of $65 CAD/hr from clients that can afford it. I do this by stating a per-hour fee up-front, and dropping it down to the appropriate rate. I also stand behind my work - if I make a mistake (don't fix something properly), I own up to it, and fix it for no charge. To date, that's only happened twice (one was an incompatible nv driver issue, another time I forgot to restore a backup). Nobody else has that kind of integrity.
I found that my client base started growing exponentially - I had to start telling people to stop passing along my name, except for computer emergencies. That said, it's not for everyone. I'd never become rich that way. If you're doing it for the money, I think that you have to go the "big business" way...
One of my friends moved 2000 km away to start a tech business the "big business" way. He charged $90+/hr because that's nearly what it cost him. An employee would take a small chunk, he would take a small chunk, and the rest went towards things like office, call center, gas, ads (yellow pages), franchise fee, etc. He ended up in the black after a couple years, but gave up on the business (he sold it) because it was just so much work to manage. 80 hour weeks were common, though it would have made him a lot of money had he kept it up. He's now trying it again in a different market (an entirely different country), and aiming more at business than home clients.
He's repeatedly mentioned that it's very hard to find techies that are any good. Maybe 1 in 100 applicants actually knows what they're doing. The rest just claim to have knowledge on their resumes.
If you're not franchising, I personally think you're way better off, then again, I've never really felt the need to make more than an average salary.
Another good friend of mine worked as a techie in a local franchise. It sucked. He was paid $15/hour, but charging $100/hour!..!? (100/hr pricing at this place was based on "services performed", but that was more or less BS.) They'd get paid double if they had repeat clients, but how many clients would ever call back when the bill is $250 for just over 2 hours?
Personally, I think the way to go is a small business that maintains a firm stance on honesty and integrity. People hate feeling cheated/ripped off like they tend to when they go to the bigger franchises.
Warning about charging too little. (Score:4, Informative)
If you charge too little you run the risk of a couple of things. First, you're going to put your competitors on the defensive, something you don't want to do until you are established with a solid reputation and customer base. Secondly, prospective customers may look at the gap between your prices and those of your competitors and conclude that there must be a reason you're charging so litte, perhaps you're not as qualified or don't have as much experience.
Re:Remote support? (Score:3, Informative)
Use UltraVNC-SC. It creates a stand-alone VNC server executable that is configured to connect back to YOUR static IP address (a reverse VNC connection basically). I have mine hosted at help.mydomain.com.au. I just tell anyone who I need to assist this name which they type in and run and voila, i'm controlling their desktop. No firewalls to configure (except yours) and no hassles on their end. Best of all it's free.
http://sc.uvnc.com/index.php?section=12 [uvnc.com]
Re:If you must.. (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't have to be bulky. Carry a laptop and an IDE-to-USB cable (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N
Re:Talk to a business advisory service (Score:3, Informative)
In the US the Small Business Administration...
http://www.sba.gov/ [sba.gov]
And it's non-profit affiliate, SCORE:
http://www.score.org/ [score.org]
Re:If you must.. (Score:3, Informative)
Out of hundreds of in-home repairs I did, very few people will actually stand and watch. Do you sit and watch the plumber while he unclogs your toilet?
their mouse will be gunked up with toxic fluid, their screen will be covered in grease
This does happen, though not that often. Most people willing to pay for PC repair are also intelligent enough to have a clean space to work in.
they will at no time have any os,boot or driver cds to hand
Most people do have this stuff, although some don't. But you will carry an OEM copy of XP Home and Pro (never to be installed unless they have their own license sticker), so what's the problem? If their discs are missing sell them a new copy of Windows.
it will be so clogged up with viruses and trojans that just getting the damned thing to boot into safe mode will take you an hour
It won't take that long, and clogged up with viruses is GOOD, it gives them a reason to pay you to be there.
you will then need to get out of safe mode to connect to the net to get a new driver version
You can run safe mode with networking.
It was rare that I needed more than some tools on a USB key and a screwdriver in my pocket to do most repairs. Keep a video card, sound card, extra hard drive and extra optical drive in the car, keyboard and mouse, and you're 95% covered. Carry some routers, a couple of cat5 and usb cables as well.
I actually *do* exactly this..... (Score:3, Informative)
Initially, I tried to make a full-time business out of this because I was unemployed and the job market was pretty sluggish. But now, it's turned out to be perfect as a "side job".
I can give you a few pieces of advice, based on my findings. But your results may vary.
1. Don't waste money on big phone book ads! I mistakenly believed the Yellow Pages would be critical to my business, but I immediately ran into a couple of problems. First and foremost, my phone company (Southwestern Bell) refused to let me buy a listing in their Yellow Pages unless I owned a business phone number. They wouldn't allow me to publish a cellphone number in their book. I have no need for a land-line for this business, and wouldn't want to pay business rates on one anyway - so that was a no-go. Their competitor in my area, "Yellow Book", offers a clone of the Yellow Pages and *does* let you list cell numbers in it. (Plus, they have cheaper rates for ads.) I took a chance with them, but I'm stuck paying about $160 a month plus several hundred dollars I paid up-front, and I've only gotten 2 customers out of it in 6 or 7 months! If I was going to do it over, I'd just get a 1 line listing and that's it. People do call from the ad, occasionally, but they're usually clueless and asking for things that have nothing to do with my service. (EG. You don't happen to sell new iPods, do you?)
2. Whatever you decide on as your fee structure, make sure it doesn't make people "watch the clock", afraid of getting too big a bill. Many people who use your service will be "on the fence" about it in the first place. They're hoping they have a problem that can be fixed in 30 minutes or less. (Meanwhile, you get there and realize their 4 year old PC is so slow, you can hardly install a single piece of software on it in that length of time - much less remove all the viruses and spyware.) You'll get pressured by these people to do a "rush job" and make things "just good enough" instead of doing it right. You DON'T want that!! (This is a case where they don't know what's best for them. Those device drivers you just "decided to let them find and install later" to save time, or the trojan horse downloader virus you weren't quite able to get time to remove completely are going to make all the work you did pointless!) I like the idea I've seen some handymen use, where they charge $80 or $85 up-front, but that covers the first hour of work, and then additional time is billed at a much lower rate.
3. If you have a little money to invest in this type of business, buy 2 things. First, get an in-car GPS system! It's almost essential for quickly finding houses, or the quickest way to client #2 from client #1 that you're just leaving. Second, look into your options for wireless high-speed Internet access! There are *so* many times I wish I had broadband to my laptop so I could download large files a customer needed who only had a dial-up modem at their location. I've often had to drive back home, burn things on CD, and make a second trip back out there to get their all-in-one printer going, or to get all the needed drivers back on a system after a fresh Windows reinstall.
Re:bank? (Score:3, Informative)
I talked with the Small Business Administration. There are some good people that can give advice, but it seems the world has changed quickly and these nice people from the goverment who want to help you just can't keep up with the changes. Their loan backing programs are a joke compared to what the banks want. They do have people who can give you some good advice, but don't count on them for any financial help and don't count on banks.
Starting on the nights and weekends is a good idea because you'll need your day job to keep paying the bills. Don't quit the dayjob until your business can generate the same amount of income regularly -- not just one month, but over and over. Ignore the banks and don't deal with them for loans or credit cards. You'll save time that way and won't get caught in the nasty traps banks use to raise interest rates on credit cards.