Here in the Houston area, we probably have a few new computer businesses starting every day and due to their lack of planning, the majority will be closed within a year. These are just simple facts of any industry but our industry is forever changing and at a fast pace and I don’t think newbies coming into the business understand how much effort it takes to keep up with the advancing technologies. I’m not saying a new computer company can not be successful, but I would stress that they examine the market a little before jumping out there and claiming themselves as the “PC Guru”. There is a serious amount of competition in the Houston area wanting to provide the city with computer care. If you do a Google search for “Computer Companies in Houston”, you will see that there are 73 million page results. That tells me the competition is fierce. My advice is to go ahead and start your business but do it for as little money as possible, in case you have to close it down in a few months. The great thing about running a computer repair business is that you can start it for next to nothing and run it with very low overhead.
Starting a Computer Repair Business – Home PC Repairs vs. Small Business PC Repairs
When your just starting out with your business, you might want to stick to in home PC repair as the work is simpler and a few months of this type of work will give you the confidence for you to move up to small businesses. Home computer setups rarely have difficult to manage components like servers, top of the line firewalls or complex networks. You should be able to learn on the job with the typical home network. I do advise that you have some knowledge of computers and networks before stepping foot in a customer’s home. You should have at least worked on your own computer and some friends or families computers to gain some much needed hands-on experience. For a great, inexpensive book to help you start your own business, check out:
How to Start a Small Computer Repair Business – Solo or you and a Buddy
Unless you have loads of cash, starting small is the way to go and you can do this on a very small budget. Sure, it would be nice to get an LLC, set up a partnership or even a sole-proprietorship but all you really need is a bank account in your name to deposit the checks. Here in Houston, a DBA (Doing Business As – Assumed Name) only costs $12 so you could get one and open a checking account in the businesses name so you look more professional. Next, you will need some cheap business cards. Start out with 100 to 500 plain black and white business cards to keep costs down. If you’re in business for more that 6 months, then maybe you can get a logo and make the cards look more professional. Having a set of computer tools will be handy and you should have a small USB pen drive where you can store software utilities for use on computers you are repairing. Since you are just starting out, I wouldn’t get too fancy on the invoices so maybe just pick up a pack of blank invoices from an office supply store. At this point, you’re ready to go out and be a computer repair guy. Oh wait, where do you get work from?
How to Build Clients for your Home Computer Repair Business
One problem you WILL run into over the course of your computer repair business career is having enough work to do. If you are doing your job right, you are fixing things and you will no longer be needed for a while or until the next issue or upgrade comes along. So, how do you get new business or keep current business flowing? First and foremost, there is word of mouth which is the most powerful form of gaining new business. The person passing on your name is pleased with your work and they tell a person close to them and that helps the new client gain immediate trust in you for the work that they need done. Word of mouth is a beautiful thing. What to do if clients just aren’t spreading the word? Well, you could offer incentives for referrals, you could blanket the neighborhood of your current client with business cards and explain that you just recently helped a person on the next street over. The problem with this method is that its very time consuming and you can’t drum up new business and work at the same time. You need a way to pull in new business while you are making money. The answer is advertising, but the low-budget advertising will be fine.
Taking your Home PC Repair Business from Start-up to Superstar
When we first started our Houston Computer Repair business way back in 1998, we thought word of mouth would be enough to live off of but we soon found out that we needed to get the word out to the masses that we were available and ready to work our butts of for our clients. I laugh now, but we used the Greensheet, the Chronicle, SW News and other small local newspapers to build our business but the advertising cost was much more than the money we made from the work we got. Somehow we survived the rough start and built a website to explain the services we provided and pricing. Now, when we talked to someone and give them a card, they could go learn a little more about what we can offer via our website. Most people don’t have time for you to explain your business to them, but when they need the service, there is your card and your website.
We didn’t learn until later that having a website also brought in new business on its own from the search engines. Now, Google was barely a month old when we first started so search wasn’t a big way to get business in the first couple years of our existence.
For the new person starting up their own computer repair business, I would tell them to get a website up as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just build one that explains your passion, your services, your rates and anything else you really want to talk about. Again, I want to stress that building a website and hosting it can be done very cheaply and can keep your small computer repair business running on a very slim budget. No need to hire someone to build your site either as there are plenty of platforms out there that are very simple to manage. It just takes a little courage to step up and want your business to succeed.
Good luck with your dream to start your own business and I hope this article has helped in some way.
Troy