Starting a new Business! Advice needed

[atmadden]

Have been repairing laptops and pc's for friends and family for a few years now and was thinking of starting my own business as bored with my job and I would like to do this sort of thing as a business. Haven't really got a clue of how to go about it tho. Any ideas or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[IBM]

There are a lot of pc/laptop repair places out there.....have you checked to see how much local competition you have, and how much they are charging for repairs?

[GrahamGarside]

My advice is stick with your job, get some cards and some newspaper adverts and do it part time in the evenings.

It's hard to gauge the demand for something like this because almost everyone has a friends/family person who does it for them

[Kezzer]

I highly advise against starting a business in this field. I know a few people who've done it and they've just been completely destroyed by the competition thus leaving them in financial ruin. There may be demand, but there's way too much competition.

[arbitor]

As said unless your backed bya shopfront or a proper established business theres no point as it doesnt instil trust.

And you will find yourself doing favours thus losing money just dont bother is all i can say unless you opening a shop or something that would be a better idea.

[TiG]

Plus the whole nature of the pc repair business is exactly what you do, friends who have IT knowledge usually do it for free. Outside your friend/family network do you really think people are going to pay for your time?.

TiG

[ikonia]

don't do it

[Whalefish]

Once you answer the phone and listen to the 100th person wanting you to fix their pc for free\next to nothing, or just wanting free advice, you will realise what a big mistake you've made.

[vicar]

Walk away from it.

[Nick F]

Seems like your really into this kind of thing, do what the others have said and get know around your local area as someone that can fix computers. People would much rather let a recommendation fix their machine rather than PC World!

You could always think about going on a night course and get a qualification in this area.

[Jay]

I was looking into setting up my own PC / Corp network business but the insurance was going to be a big problem!

[arbitor]

imo you have to fix alot of machines to pay a good wage, and if you accidently break one ( which you will) because its easy then your going to lose money.

Then if you loose a customers data after saying you coudl deffo get it back then what?

[GoNz0]

what are you good at with laptops ?

if you can remove and replace broken DC jacks you may be as well offering your services to the local PC shops as a lot of them dont do board level repairs.

offer a fixed price on laptops a couple of years old onward, £50 for none sonys and up to £100 for sonys (bloody expensive jacks they are)

do you have a hot air soldering station ?

thinking about getting one myself as i do this for a living

[arbitor]

any one with a soldering iron and some balls can do the above, i do it regularly.

[GoNz0]

must be a lack of balls round our way

[arbitor]

must be a lack of balls round our way

haha, no your just have to be confident that you arent going to own the motherboard then it gets nasty..