New business venture

[TopChip7]

Hi ;)

I'm thinking of starting a new business in a local town centre as there are no computer shops actually positioned on, or near the high street.

The kind of things I'll be looking to do are as follows:

*Sale of components
*Repairs
*Upgrades
*PC Building

I know a reasonable amount - enough to build my last couple of pc's anyway.
I know which parts are compatiable such as DDR or DDR2, SLI or Crossfire etc.
I hardly know anything about networking etc as I've never had to use it.

Can anyone recommend some study work that they think I really should know before I look into investing - such as troubleshooting, networking etc

Courses or DVDs would be better - I'm not really one for studying from literature, I prefer to practice what I need to learn as it sinks in quicker!

Thanks

[jlreich]

You do need to learn at least the basics of networking. You need to at least know how to deal with SOHO networks. Things like how to repair the TCP/IP stack from the command prompt, and how to install and configure wired and wireless.

And you definitely need to know how to clean up malware. That's my biggest money maker far above everything else. I would suggest going over to Spywareinfo and perhaps enrolling in their classroom.

I have looked at some promising courses online but they were too much money for my pocket so I can't recommend one.

I am sure others will have comments.

[david eaton]

I would second jlreich's comments about cleaning up malware. It make money for me too! Enroll at Spywareinfo Boot camp, and you will learn a lot about cleaning up malware.

[juniper]

Correct me if Im wrong but I would concider that to be a very high risk venture on leasing in the town square for PC repair, I just dont see money in that anymore because of the high amount of competition with out of house PC techs and things like geek squad, the money is in the networking services IMHO. JL and David Im assuming you two do PC repair out of the house maybe? Anyway I would say at the minimum you would want A+ and Network+ certs first SOHO networking is a must! maleware/virus and home networking issues will probably be the biggest business you get.

[jlreich]

Correct me if Im wrong but I would concider that to be a very high risk venture on leasing in the town square for PC repair, I just dont see money in that anymore because of the high amount of competition with out of house PC techs and things like geek squad
I think it depends on your area. Geek Squad and such are very expensive and easy to compete against in price. Marketing is the thing that will be hard to compete with.

TopChip7, I would caution against jumping into a large investment head first. Keep in mind the hardware is the easy part. And Building computers is not going to make you very much money. It is very difficult to compete with the big guys in that area. When it comes to building for yourself you can save a bundle of cash, but building for profit is a whole other story. Most people don't understand the value of a custom built machine using quality off the shelf standard parts verses a $500 machine from one of the OEM's.

Your biggest money making is going to be from the software side of things. As already said things like malware, setting up and configuring networks, recovering from boot errors, data recovery, various OS and program problems etc.

You will make money from things like troubleshooting, replacing/upgrading CD/DVD, PSU's, HDD's, ram. Gotta love OEM's in this area. :D

But that is the general consumer side of things. I do agree with Juniper when it comes to the big bucks. Networking is where it's at. Getting a service contract for a company that has a ton of servers and clients in a complicated internetwork is a whole other story.

[TopChip7]

Thanks guys.

Have taken all of your advice on board and will give it some considerable thought before I spend a dime.

Thanks again