Business opportunity for a techie...
Discussion
....who can speak the language of non techies.
I used to have the benefit of an IT bod in our company who'd set up my home stuff for me, but not anymore. I HATE sourcing and setting up tech. I'd happily pay someone handsomely to do it, and I am sure I am not alone. But whilst there used to be a couple of firms locally who serviced the home / small office customer they seem to have disappeared.
If you understand tech and can translate a basic requirement into a solution there has to be money in it. Especially as home working seems set to grow in popularity.
Speaking as someone who ran an unsuccessful side to my IT support contracting by trying to look after home users; I can only report that it's not worth it as a standalone proposition!
Hardly anyone at home wants to pay for decent new kit, and would rather throw broken kit out than get a PC repaired. Preventative services such as backup or AV are an even harder sell but when the machine you sold them is trashed by malware then it's still "your fault". With residential customers you have the added joy of frequently skanky onsite working environments with machines full of dust/furballs/fag ash/mysterious fluids.
Business working from home types will mostly be supported by their existing 1st line IT support, but there maybe a small opportunity for some field work that they want to contract out.
Hardly anyone at home wants to pay for decent new kit, and would rather throw broken kit out than get a PC repaired. Preventative services such as backup or AV are an even harder sell but when the machine you sold them is trashed by malware then it's still "your fault". With residential customers you have the added joy of frequently skanky onsite working environments with machines full of dust/furballs/fag ash/mysterious fluids.
Business working from home types will mostly be supported by their existing 1st line IT support, but there maybe a small opportunity for some field work that they want to contract out.
So said:
I'd happily pay someone handsomely to do it, and I am sure I am not alone.
You'd be surprised - truth is you actually are alone or in a group of prospective customers that is so minuscule it's just not worth a one man band going through the cost and hassle of setting up a business for it. Everyone's got a mate/relative/bloke down the road who can do it cheaper/for free or will just "pop it in to Know How at PC World next time I'm in town". Or they're at work all day so the only time you can go and help them is in the evening or weekends. Any decent IT bod will already be in a full time job that pays their mortgage and will be the aforementioned "mate down the road" for this kind of work as your opening post illustrates.48k said:
So said:
I'd happily pay someone handsomely to do it, and I am sure I am not alone.
You'd be surprised - truth is you actually are alone or in a group of prospective customers that is so minuscule it's just not worth a one man band going through the cost and hassle of setting up a business for it. Everyone's got a mate/relative/bloke down the road who can do it cheaper/for free or will just "pop it in to Know How at PC World next time I'm in town". Any decent IT bod will already be in a full time job that pays their mortgage and will be the aforementioned "mate down the road" for this kind of work as your opening post illustrates.Exactly what I have set my new business up to do.
Whilst mainly focused at London and in the future major cities in the UK if it rolls out. Residential HNW base that make more money working than taking time off to try to sort it, just pay someone else to sort it for them.
Happy to chat about it with you.
V.
Whilst mainly focused at London and in the future major cities in the UK if it rolls out. Residential HNW base that make more money working than taking time off to try to sort it, just pay someone else to sort it for them.
Happy to chat about it with you.
V.
lol, in my experience over 25 years, with very few exceptions the High Net Worth crowd are the tightest and most hassle of them all.
bizarrely they'll throw money at people to landscape their garden for them or book their lunches but then want to keep running Office 2000 forever rather than spend a few quid getting up to date. Or you find they've gone out and bought some pony Netgear box that someone told them was amazing and expect you to make it do things it's completely the wrong kit for.
The only home support I do now is for a CEO and a director who I've known for decades and for whom I also do all their company IT.
bizarrely they'll throw money at people to landscape their garden for them or book their lunches but then want to keep running Office 2000 forever rather than spend a few quid getting up to date. Or you find they've gone out and bought some pony Netgear box that someone told them was amazing and expect you to make it do things it's completely the wrong kit for.
The only home support I do now is for a CEO and a director who I've known for decades and for whom I also do all their company IT.
VEX said:
Exactly what I have set my new business up to do.
Whilst mainly focused at London and in the future major cities in the UK if it rolls out. Residential HNW base that make more money working than taking time off to try to sort it, just pay someone else to sort it for them.
Happy to chat about it with you.
V.
Drop me a mail by all means. I am in the midlands though.Whilst mainly focused at London and in the future major cities in the UK if it rolls out. Residential HNW base that make more money working than taking time off to try to sort it, just pay someone else to sort it for them.
Happy to chat about it with you.
V.
kev1974 said:
lol, in my experience over 25 years, with very few exceptions the High Net Worth crowd are the tightest and most hassle of them all.
bizarrely they'll throw money at people to landscape their garden for them or book their lunches but then want to keep running Office 2000 forever rather than spend a few quid getting up to date. Or you find they've gone out and bought some pony Netgear box that someone told them was amazing and expect you to make it do things it's completely the wrong kit for.
The only home support I do now is for a CEO and a director who I've known for decades and for whom I also do all their company IT.
I dont disagree, but my experience in this sector means I am not afraid to tell clients they are wrong and to take it back. bizarrely they'll throw money at people to landscape their garden for them or book their lunches but then want to keep running Office 2000 forever rather than spend a few quid getting up to date. Or you find they've gone out and bought some pony Netgear box that someone told them was amazing and expect you to make it do things it's completely the wrong kit for.
The only home support I do now is for a CEO and a director who I've known for decades and for whom I also do all their company IT.
Or tell them I can get it working, but it will take more time, be less effective and they will pay for that additional time. Most respect that more than a yes-man, those that dont, I dont want as a client.
The idea is to build trust and then you become the person they ask rather than a bloke they met at the gym! A client move to a friend in the gym last year and whilst he has done some things, it is obvious that he doesnt understand some aspects of the install and the client has contacted me for support this week. Which of-course I have provided.
V.
I used to do this sort of thing whilst I was at University.
There is plenty of work - but most people expect you to turn up at their house, spend as long as it takes fixing the problem or setting up their kit - which is often several hours - and are disgusted when you ask them for more than £20. They then expect you to provide ongoing support on a 24/7 basis for at least the next 12 months because they've paid you to touch it.
Nobody wants to pay someone £100 to fix a £300 laptop.
It was alright making a bit of beer money at Uni, but it was useful test of the market and it was clear it was not the right place to be. I did pick up a few businesses as customers during the same period and they were far more profitable and less hassle to deal with.
There is plenty of work - but most people expect you to turn up at their house, spend as long as it takes fixing the problem or setting up their kit - which is often several hours - and are disgusted when you ask them for more than £20. They then expect you to provide ongoing support on a 24/7 basis for at least the next 12 months because they've paid you to touch it.
Nobody wants to pay someone £100 to fix a £300 laptop.
It was alright making a bit of beer money at Uni, but it was useful test of the market and it was clear it was not the right place to be. I did pick up a few businesses as customers during the same period and they were far more profitable and less hassle to deal with.
Agreed, but they will pay for you to support £100k worth of AV system and tech in a house, when no-one else could.
For example, one client spent 6months fighting BT and House Builder over poor internet speeds. I got called in by property manager, hourly charges agreed beforehand, with PO, found & fixed fault within 2hours.
Resident extremely happy, Property manager even more so.
For example, one client spent 6months fighting BT and House Builder over poor internet speeds. I got called in by property manager, hourly charges agreed beforehand, with PO, found & fixed fault within 2hours.
Resident extremely happy, Property manager even more so.
Unfortunately, unlike plumbing, heating engineers, electricians, IT support is not deemed to be a trade!
Therefore you whack someone with a £100 bill to wipe their laptop of dodgy malware or repair a £500 desktop etc, it's deemed to be paid as a mate down the pub, ie £20 in the back pocket.
Until IT Support is viewed as a TRADE it will continue to attract the 'mates down the pub' or the 'my son-in law can fix this' for beer money attitude..
I'm always being asked to fix stuff, I hate it, I don't work on x86 or Mac's or whatever, I work on IBM Mainframes, but i'm in "IT" so I get asked to fix all sorts of s
t! Nobody wants to pay me though.... If i charged them my daily rate they'd soon run away, but will happily pay an electrician to fit a light fitting for the same money :-(
Therefore you whack someone with a £100 bill to wipe their laptop of dodgy malware or repair a £500 desktop etc, it's deemed to be paid as a mate down the pub, ie £20 in the back pocket.
Until IT Support is viewed as a TRADE it will continue to attract the 'mates down the pub' or the 'my son-in law can fix this' for beer money attitude..
I'm always being asked to fix stuff, I hate it, I don't work on x86 or Mac's or whatever, I work on IBM Mainframes, but i'm in "IT" so I get asked to fix all sorts of s
t! Nobody wants to pay me though.... If i charged them my daily rate they'd soon run away, but will happily pay an electrician to fit a light fitting for the same money :-(quinny100 said:
I used to do this sort of thing whilst I was at University.
There is plenty of work - but most people expect you to turn up at their house, spend as long as it takes fixing the problem or setting up their kit - which is often several hours - and are disgusted when you ask them for more than £20. They then expect you to provide ongoing support on a 24/7 basis for at least the next 12 months because they've paid you to touch it.
Crikey, this all the way!!There is plenty of work - but most people expect you to turn up at their house, spend as long as it takes fixing the problem or setting up their kit - which is often several hours - and are disgusted when you ask them for more than £20. They then expect you to provide ongoing support on a 24/7 basis for at least the next 12 months because they've paid you to touch it.
I remember spending hours fixing a PC which belonged to the bloke who ran a pub I used to frequent. He caught wind that I worked at the local authority in desktop support so asked me to look at his broken PC. This was back in 2000, and he had tried to reinstall Windows ME but totally balls'd it up. So I spent a few hours putting the OS on and then numerous hours returning back to my place to download the correct drivers for his hardware - his cheap PC didn't come with a drivers CD. This was back when all my parents had was a 56k modem connection. So as you can imagine, I had to look at the hardware, find out the manufacturer and then try and find the drivers on the Internet, download them and burn them to CD. Quite a lot of hassle.
Once I got it all up and running, he offered me a pint and chip butty as payment? I thought him to be a "mate" so just put it down as me doing him a favour.
A few days later, I walked into the pub and he totally lost his s
t at me. Apparently, he couldn't dial up to the Internet and because I was the "last person who touched it" it was my fault? Turned out his AOL free trial Internet access had expired.After that, he ditched my "support" and instead engaged with Jono: a factory operative at the local sweet factory.
I did a job for a fairly senior Police Officer called David in about 2001. He'd got my details from his father in law. I can't recall exactly what it was, but I remember he called me on a Friday evening and was adamant it was urgent. I turned up at his house within an hour of his call about 7pm and I remember I didn't get home before the pubs shut because my mates were out and I was intending to meet them after I'd finished. Sorted the problem, been there 4 hours so it would be £40. He pulled a face and said he only had £20 on him, he'd leave the other £20 with his father in law for me.
The FiL was a lovely bloke of about 80 - friend of the family and used my services regularly to show him how to do things on his PC - he was pretty well off and had the most overspecced desktop PC I'd ever seen and he wanted to do a bit of share trading online and capture old photographs. It was fairly slow paced, but there was always plenty of tea and homemade cake and he always paid me cash as I was leaving, usually a bit more than I asked for.
I asked a few times had David left anything for me over the next few visits, but he hadn't. I knocked at his house one evening when I was passing, terribly sorry, slipped his mind, didn't have any cash on him right now, he'd leave it with his FiL. Never happened. I saw him in town a couple of months later, went over and asked him if everything was OK with his PC - he confirmed it was fine. I mentioned the outstanding £20 - oh so sorry, don't have any cash... OK, there are 4 cash machines within 20 yards of where we're stood... Didn't have his bank card. He was carrying 2 bags of shopping...
As a 19 year old I left it at that - although if I ever saw him again I'd definitely mention it.
I used to do a bit of regular work for a relative to give him a lift with his business admin. I was studying finance and accountancy as a minor subject at Uni and I'd taught myself how to use Sage so I could do book keeping etc. I hadn't heard from him for a couple of weeks, so gave him a call and asked was everything alright. Apparently the last time I'd been in, I'd been on the (dial up) Internet and broken his email because he was now getting hundreds of emails about Viagra and Russian Brides and it was my fault apparently! I stopped working for him regularly when i got a full time job, but he asked me to come to his business premises to help him with a couple of things and help him choose a new laptop, and later to come to his house on a Sunday and move all his business stuff over to a new laptop he'd bought and make some changes to his Sage reports. I'd moved away and I lived about a 100 mile round trip away by this time, but agreed to do it anyway. I was there all day and he gave me £40. I said I thought that was bit low, and that £100 would be more realistic. He gave me £100, but he's never spoken to me since so it obviously pissed him off.
I work for an MSP and had no shortage of customers asking for me specifically and happy to pay north of a grand a day for my professional services. I make a decent living out of IT, and I love technology but the only private work I'll entertain these days is pro bono work for my parents and grandparents. My sister tried to palm her laptop off on me a few weeks ago - I told her to buy a new one.
The FiL was a lovely bloke of about 80 - friend of the family and used my services regularly to show him how to do things on his PC - he was pretty well off and had the most overspecced desktop PC I'd ever seen and he wanted to do a bit of share trading online and capture old photographs. It was fairly slow paced, but there was always plenty of tea and homemade cake and he always paid me cash as I was leaving, usually a bit more than I asked for.
I asked a few times had David left anything for me over the next few visits, but he hadn't. I knocked at his house one evening when I was passing, terribly sorry, slipped his mind, didn't have any cash on him right now, he'd leave it with his FiL. Never happened. I saw him in town a couple of months later, went over and asked him if everything was OK with his PC - he confirmed it was fine. I mentioned the outstanding £20 - oh so sorry, don't have any cash... OK, there are 4 cash machines within 20 yards of where we're stood... Didn't have his bank card. He was carrying 2 bags of shopping...
As a 19 year old I left it at that - although if I ever saw him again I'd definitely mention it.
I used to do a bit of regular work for a relative to give him a lift with his business admin. I was studying finance and accountancy as a minor subject at Uni and I'd taught myself how to use Sage so I could do book keeping etc. I hadn't heard from him for a couple of weeks, so gave him a call and asked was everything alright. Apparently the last time I'd been in, I'd been on the (dial up) Internet and broken his email because he was now getting hundreds of emails about Viagra and Russian Brides and it was my fault apparently! I stopped working for him regularly when i got a full time job, but he asked me to come to his business premises to help him with a couple of things and help him choose a new laptop, and later to come to his house on a Sunday and move all his business stuff over to a new laptop he'd bought and make some changes to his Sage reports. I'd moved away and I lived about a 100 mile round trip away by this time, but agreed to do it anyway. I was there all day and he gave me £40. I said I thought that was bit low, and that £100 would be more realistic. He gave me £100, but he's never spoken to me since so it obviously pissed him off.
I work for an MSP and had no shortage of customers asking for me specifically and happy to pay north of a grand a day for my professional services. I make a decent living out of IT, and I love technology but the only private work I'll entertain these days is pro bono work for my parents and grandparents. My sister tried to palm her laptop off on me a few weeks ago - I told her to buy a new one.
So said:
....who can speak the language of non techies.
I used to have the benefit of an IT bod in our company who'd set up my home stuff for me, but not anymore. I HATE sourcing and setting up tech. I'd happily pay someone handsomely to do it, and I am sure I am not alone. But whilst there used to be a couple of firms locally who serviced the home / small office customer they seem to have disappeared.
If you understand tech and can translate a basic requirement into a solution there has to be money in it. Especially as home working seems set to grow in popularity.
My brother does this sort of stuff. He has a shop where he buys/sells/repairs PCs and related equipment and that includes building PCs to customer spec and installing at home. He built it up over word of mouth and is constantly busy. He does everything from selling an Ethernet cable to setting up multiple PC networks.I used to have the benefit of an IT bod in our company who'd set up my home stuff for me, but not anymore. I HATE sourcing and setting up tech. I'd happily pay someone handsomely to do it, and I am sure I am not alone. But whilst there used to be a couple of firms locally who serviced the home / small office customer they seem to have disappeared.
If you understand tech and can translate a basic requirement into a solution there has to be money in it. Especially as home working seems set to grow in popularity.
However (as pretty much every tradesman will tell you) some customers can be incredibly annoying/irritating p155takers. A lot of people think it's something they can DIY fairly easily; sometimes this is true, other times it isn't For example when he first started out he would do diagnoses for free and provide a quote for repairs. He would then wonder why quite a few people didn't ask him to carry out the repair - turned out they would buy the part from Amazon and try to repair it themselves. This stopped when he started charging a fee for Diagnostics.
Another common trick was asking him where HE got his parts from so they could cut out the middleman (and then coming back a few days later when they realised that his prices weren't that much more than Amazon when you factored in the delivery for a cable costing £3).
Anyway OP - there are people out there that provide the service you're looking for, but it wouldn't be viable as a standalone business. There's probably a 1 or 2-man band shop local to you. If they're competent they should easily be able to do what you are asking for.
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