Hello everyone! Me and my buds are planning on starting a computer-building business, and we wanted to know what kind of advice the Tek Syndicate forum can give us, like what people want and such. Any type of advice or suggestions are welcome :)
If you can't find a niche the margins are terrible. I don't know how anyone could make a serious go of it.
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if you don't know "what people want," don't start a company trying to do it
I've been trying it on the side for a while now and for side income its OK but its hard to do as a full time endeavor. More often then not I just get requests for virus removal and replacing burned out drives and other no frills tasks
Take it from someone who had a business building custom computers back in the late 90's till the mid 2000's, there isn't any money to be made unless you have a lot of potential customers who have deep pockets and no idea how to build a computer. Today most non-techie computer users (the vast majority, think about your mom, dad, sisters, brothers, and grandma) look at a computer as a appliance like a tv, phone or stereo, they know nothing about features, they know nothing about megahertz or gigahertz, much less megabytes, all they know is price as in what does your custom computer cost vs the HP or Acer at the big box store.
I got out of the business when new PCs were $499 at Bestbuy, it's hard to sell a non-techie on the virtues of quality and performance because they don't understand the difference, most folks who do know the difference will try to build their own. You need to think about just how much profit is there going to be? most of us can build a really kick-ass box for under $1000 USD, so in that case how much will you sell a $1000 (your cost) computer for? Who will handle the warranty issues? When the n00b gets the new PC infected from a porn site who is going to fix it for them? who will pay for the time it takes to reload the OS after the n00b trashes it for the third time in a month?
Today.... there are more pitfalls than ever selling computers, there is a reason big box stores like Bestbuy have the Geek Squad and its because the only customers left buying PCs are n00bs who haven't a clue, that they can fleece money from, everyone else either has the ability to build their own custom computer or knows a kid down the street who is good with computers to do it for them....the few that are left that do have a little knowledge about computers but would never build their own probably will buy a Mac because...well you know they don't get viruses and never break down, and well it's made by Apple!.
As a hobby building computers is fun and if you can sell a few that's all the better, but as a business, not today, you and your friends would be better served and have a brighter future, make much more profit if you learned everything you could about networking, setting up servers with active directory, network topography, VoiP, virtualization of servers and LANs, or CCTV IP based security systems, today that is where the future is and lots of money to be made.
Hope this help you...
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I would say don't create a physical store and create more of a website mail in sort of business . Pc building is a niche market and I don't see how one could find a city with a large market, and an affordable building in said city.
I am with the others here, it is very hard to do a pc building company. I know from personal experience, now I don't have any degrees in business management or the likes but, me and my dad have a very small computer shop located in a small farm town, with a few larger cites around us. We get some business but its mostly not people looking for new computers since you simply can't compete with the low end market and people that are going to spend the 700usd and up probably know how to do it themselves. Mostly we end up cleaning out the OS and cleaning the dust out, maybe replacing a hard drive or adding ram.
So unless you plan on doing more then just custom computer builds, don't bother it will not take off. if you want to do like webdesign, network consulting, programming or something else that has a higher demand and offer custom machines along side that then sure go right ahead.
A good way to get steady income is to partner with companies and do their system maintenance/cleaning or some other service that they may find themselves needing. That way you know that money will be there unless they terminate the contract.
best suggestion is -> don't do it.
Too expensive, no-one will buy them, requires capital.
~ if you want to start somewhere; just post custom build and list of components on ebay... when some1 buy's it put it together.
While I agree with most of the soul-crushing advice above I will make a constructive suggestion. Look at other computer related business opportunities that you and your buddies could endeavor. For instance offer an on-site computer help, repair and upgrade service. This has much lower overhead especially without an initial store front.
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You might also want to do a computer class, where you teach people basic computer stuff like adding printers the importance of updating stuff, ect.
When i worked for Charter i had a lot of people who didn't even know how to access their Charter.net emails because the simply never have used email or "had their grandson do it". many times i was asked to come back after work to show them how to use their computer.
Unless you're the only one in your area, probably not worth it.
Depending on your area a lan center is always a good thing to have though.
This ^^^^^^^^
On-site help is a great idea, a small free ad on craigs list to start out, work your neighborhood and branch out, if you have the ability to talk to people and can repair problems both software/OS and hardware along with teaching basic computer skills you guys could do well, but you need to be knowledgeable, confident, and have the ability to explain things about computers/software to your clients in terms they can understand. (don't talk over their heads)
Another avenue you guys might try is by knocking on doors and asking if they have any old computers they want to dispose of and offer to take them off their hands for free, it gets your foot in the door and maybe get you a old computer you can rebuild/repair and sell it on CL. Almost every family has a old PC sitting in the garage that just needs the OS cleaned because it got too slow (malware or viruses), or the HD failed and they just bought a new shiny box. Tell them you do repairs and teach basic skills while your carrying the old PC out the door and it would be handy if you had a business card to give them for future reference. Most cities here in the US don't allow used PCs to go to the landfill and have special once a year events to collect and dispose of unwanted electronics, so there are lots just sitting around gathering dust. (just be sure to destroy any personal data that might be left on the PCs hard drive...gotta' keep it legal)
Keep a USB thumb drive with you that has all the free utilities like Avira, Malwarebytes, Spybot, etc so you can sit right down at their PC and run a virus/malware scan if they ask you to look at the PC their having problems with....
All good ideas. The more services you can offer the better. Think about branching into smartphones and setting up home lans.
This Linus video might give you some ideas too.
I do builds to supplement my income, but it is not a source of reliable or consistent income. It's a difficult market, because the people who are willing to throw down the serious money for a build often can do the build themselves. On the flipside, people who want something cheap and will just "do the job" are just as likely to go to Wal-mart, or some such, and pick something up. With the mobile market in full swing, it's even harder.
The majority of my builds have been around the $500-800 mark, and usually for people who just don't want to deal with the hassle. I think the most expensive build I have done was $1800.
Don't. Whatever you do it will never be cheap or fast enough. I'd start a repair business first.
Install PC's into people's car dashboards. There's a market for Auto PC's, but Auto PC's are more complicated due to the inputs from steering wheel and that kind of thing.
It depends on where you live, too. In the US the consumer market is all for laptop, tablet, and home-built PC. The business market is all Dell and IBM - you'll have a hard time competing with them. If you live somewhere where the market isn't already saturated, then there could be an opportunity.
There aren't any big players in the Auto area yet, and many cars don't have dash computers, and the ones that do have crappy dash computers that came with the car.
Lenovo have owned the Think brand for a while now. Hasn't been IBM's gig for a good few years :-)
Thank you everyone for the advice! I also wanted to clarify on some stuff I said in my original post (should have done it earlier, but school and stuff :/). When I said what people wanted, I meant what some people want specifically, whether it's full over-kill workstation builds or all water-cooling, etc. We know what people wanted in general, which is a computer that is great quality, and does the job, what ever it may be. Plus this business was going to be online. We knew that the market is super sketchy since people just want a PC and go with brands like HP and Dell and whatnot, and not deal with waiting (depends on where they get it). As for what @blanger said, we did give some though it also adding a repair service and going around and getting old pc's (We live in a neighborhood full of old people and people have and a crap ton of old computers) And also what @Praestigiator said, we also talked about this as well, adn we may do it in the future once it's near summer n' all. Again thank you everyone for the helpful advice and suggestions!
The only PC I ever bought (rather my now ex wife, bought it) was an Ambra Hurdler 386 back in 1993. We got it from PC WORLD in Brentford, Middlesex UK. First upgrade (installing a cd drive) was done by me, then second upgrade was with a sound card. The next thing I did was build a pc for myself and then one for the wife. I never looked back after that. Point I'm making is almost anyone can build their own sytem. Only n00bs, OAP's etc., will buy ready made.
As others have said, go for networking or perhaps upgrading. I'm sure there are other neat and interesting things that you could do regarding an IT business? Don't give up your dream.... just tweek it. ;O)
A few years ago, I sold a pc that I had built (after using it for a year or so) on eBay. One of the bidders, a woman, who lost the bid, asked me if I would build her a pc. I sent her an email thanking her for the offer, but explained that though I could build a system for her, it would be in her best interest if she went with a company like DELL or MESH.