Going self employed - any advice?

Danny boy

Hi All,

I've taken the perhaps reckless decision to quit my job as a generalist support technician for a small company and to take the decision to set up my own company as a sole trader. I've had just over a couple of years experience of working in IT and have come to the decision that whilst I like the work, I cannot stand the politics of working in a company and want to give self-employment a decent shot. Due to weekend work at my last job I didn't have the opportunity to start the business up in my free time and to go from there.

The plan is to offer services to home users, such as virus removal, hardware upgrades, repair, system health checks etc. I'm going to set up a simple professional looking website, advertise in local papers, put up flyers, create business cards, so hopefully will be able to attract at least a little interest so I can get a small customer base going. I am going to have to brush up/ fine tune some of my skills for the home market and expect that it will probably take a while to get going and to make some money out of it.

Fortunately I live at home with my parents and have money saved up, so earning money isn't crucial at this moment in time so I can afford to stick this out for a while.

I don't know if anybody has tried this before or has any guidance on this sort of thing? Any advice would be appreciated. (I couldn't see any threads on this topic, but my apologies if I missed anything obvious)

Dan

saspro

Where in the UK are you based?

First of all you need to do an analysis of your local area & needs so you can set your pricing. Remember you need to cover your wages & other incidental costs you have for running a business. £40-£50 an hour is a fair rate for London & surrounding areas.

You also need to decide if it would be worth setting yourself up as a Ltd company. It's more paperwork (& usually an accountant) but it separates you (& your savings) from the company. That way if for some reason the company doesn't go well you aren't personally liable (unless you deliberately defraud people).

You also need commercial insurance/public liability so if you do destroy a customers machine (or worse) you don't end up bankrupt.

Also, the most important thing.

DO NOT GIVE ANYBODY CREDIT.

It's the most important rule. If hardware is needed get the money upfront, you don't want to be sitting on a pile of stock or be wasting your time chasing people who owe you money who have your hardware in their machines.

I usually charge parts upfront then labour on completion of a job.

njkt

Take a look at this here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/170050

Don't rent an office if you can help it until you have enough sustainable income. Seen this a lot in my local area and they all seem to close shop shortly after.

Get insurance

Get a business checking account (preferably one that has no service fee, I noticed credit unions are more likely to offer this)

Don't get credit. Don't get credit. Don't get credit... at least until after the initial bootstrapping startup period has ended and you have enough to cover the debt.

Get familiar with QuickBooks or be prepared to hire an accountant for your first year (then just learn the process for subsequent tax returns if you wish)

Spare parts, always have various amounts of RAM and some "known good" parts for troubleshooting.

Invest in different converts and adapters like SATA to IDE, PS2 to USB, gender benders.

Marketing... just f***ing do it! I have had more business in my local area simply because people knew who i was.

Go to chamber of commerce events

Build a facebook and twitter account for your company.

Build a GOOD website, if you can’t build one as good or better than geeksquad.com hire someone who can.

Draft a service agreement and adhere to it, also keep a copy for your records.

Draft a service invoice for you and your customer.

also, check out your competition see what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. In the end, you are going to be competing (at a minimum) with the 15 year old kid down the road advertising on craigslist, and big service chains so you need to strike a balance between the ultra-cheap and unreliable with the expensive but well known companies. In my area we have around 4 local companies and 3 geek squads (within 20 miles).

The first month is the hardest, you need to be flexible, reliable, punctual, and knowledgable. Having a great smile and networking your little heart out will help.

Get certified, customers like certifications even if they don't know what they are. I'm Security+ qualified, does that mean I'm qualified to remove viruses? Not at all, but does your customer base know this? It sounds shady and it might be, but your goal should eventually be business consulting so those certifications will help in the long run while providing a little early marketability.

Don't be shy, cold calling can help but you will get more no's than yes's.

That’s all i can think of from my experience right now.

whatthehell

Totally agree with saspro.

Do not give credit and, from my experience, do not get in the habit of giving breaks or discounts. Stay firm with your pricing, and make sure you are worth your pricing. If other competitors are charging less in the area, make sure you do better work than them, provide better service, etc.

Since you are at home, it sounds like a good time to try this. Make sure to build up solid clients. If you can get a good 3-5 solid clients, that are decently small to medium businesses, you should be able to sustain yourself off of this.

Definitely also have professional business cards and a good website. See if you can get referrals too!

Good luck!

kriscamaro68

When I did in home tech for a company we would have the customer sign a TOS and release of liability before starting any work. This lets the person know what the terms of your service is before starting work and lets them also know things can go wrong that are out of your control and you wont be held liable for those things.

SteveLord

A person with an A+ who thinks they can make an income from this line of work? This never happens......unless you count the other 1,000 people in your area that are doing it or also plan on doing it.

Keep it as a side gig. It is not worth the effort and work others in this thread are laying out. It is not even very profitable for those who run out of a 200sqft office.

ptilsen

SteveLord wrote: »

A person with an A+ who thinks they can make an income from this line of work? This never happens......unless you count the other 1,000 people in your area that are doing it or also plan on doing it.

Keep it as a side gig. It is not worth the effort and work others in this thread are laying out. It is not even very profitable for those who run out of a 200sqft office.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Unless there is a high demand and virtually no supply for this sort of service in your immediate area, you just aren't going to make any money doing it. It's a decent career starter, and I actually put it on my resume for a couple of years, until I got some professional experience. But going from a job to this is a step backwards, no matter how you look at it. More importantly, you more or less have resigned yourself to this career level. If you never want to work with servers and server technologies and are okay capping your income, great.

Zartanasaurus

I suppose this has to be asked, although the horse is already out of the barn. Why are you asking for advice AFTER you quit instead of before?

SteveLord

ptilsen wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree with this. Unless there is a high demand and virtually no supply for this sort of service in your immediate area, you just aren't going to make any money doing it. It's a decent career starter, and I actually put it on my resume for a couple of years, until I got some professional experience. But going from a job to this is a step backwards, no matter how you look at it. More importantly, you more or less have resigned yourself to this career level. If you never want to work with servers and server technologies and are okay capping your income, great.

Indeed. Unfortunately, a common delusion for many newcomers or anyone that has put together a computer or two. The truth is everyone is doing this. Many of the following posts seem to just pile onto the delusion. Good advice no doubt.....but let's talk about how feasible this is first.

Danny boy

Thanks for all of the replies and helpful feedback.

@saspro

I live in Winchester and would want to cover the Hampshire area, I was planning on charging £20 an hour to start off with.

@njkt

Thanks for the advice I will be sure to follow it. I hadn't even considered facebook and twitter but sounds worthwhile.

@ptilsen and Stevelord

I see your points. I don't expect it to be easy and I don't expect to make much money out of it at all. I should say that the reason why I am doing this is partly because I want to give being self employed a go and also because I want to hedge my bets. I am considering self-funding a PHD in an unrelated subject, I have the money to self fund it, its just that I want something to put on my CV in case it doesn't pan out for me in four years time. My reasoning is that if it doesn't work out, I will still have continuity in my CV which would give me a decent chance at getting back into the industry.

@Zartanasaurus

Well I was asking for advice on how to make a go at doing this, as opposed to whether it was necessarily feasible or sensible.

Turgon

Danny boy wrote: »

Hi All,

I've taken the perhaps reckless decision to quit my job as a generalist support technician for a small company and to take the decision to set up my own company as a sole trader. I've had just over a couple of years experience of working in IT and have come to the decision that whilst I like the work, I cannot stand the politics of working in a company and want to give self-employment a decent shot. Due to weekend work at my last job I didn't have the opportunity to start the business up in my free time and to go from there.

The plan is to offer services to home users, such as virus removal, hardware upgrades, repair, system health checks etc. I'm going to set up a simple professional looking website, advertise in local papers, put up flyers, create business cards, so hopefully will be able to attract at least a little interest so I can get a small customer base going. I am going to have to brush up/ fine tune some of my skills for the home market and expect that it will probably take a while to get going and to make some money out of it.

Fortunately I live at home with my parents and have money saved up, so earning money isn't crucial at this moment in time so I can afford to stick this out for a while.

I don't know if anybody has tried this before or has any guidance on this sort of thing? Any advice would be appreciated. (I couldn't see any threads on this topic, but my apologies if I missed anything obvious)

Dan

Its good you are living at home Danny as that will really drive your costs down. I think you can make a go of it but not supporting home users and small time businesses, although you can make yourself available for that. Winchester is a good location on the M3 corridor. You can do local stuff, you can do West London, you can do Portsmouth. I would look at getting some subcontract work with IT firms that already have customers and need someone handy. Get the yellow pages out for your area and start cold calling offering your services. Also try Jobserve and start talking to agents who deal with desktop support and site installation work and tell them you are available 24/7 at short notice for even a few days work. Once you have 3 - 5 companies on your books that you do a good job for, expect some repeat business. Be sure to set aside a decently equiped workshop at home, you will need it. When you are not doing paid work, you will be spending your time building contacts to try and drum up business. Expect a tough first year at it.

njkt

Just to tag on again, I agree with SteveLord. There is simply too much competition in this sort of business (residential service), if you can devote 90% of your time into generating leads then you have a good shot of it working out. Best way (imo) to do it is get a part time night job to suppliment income while you focus on your business.

Turgon has a great idea about contract work, it's the ideal road to go down (contracting or consulting).

SteveLord

I would look for real professional experience (another job, even part time or temp contracts as previously mentioned). Cleaning up a computer a few times a month does not compare and wouldn't even be worth putting on a resume IMO.

Danny boy

Thanks Turgon, I hadn't even considered sub contracting but now that you mention it, it sounds like a great idea. Fortunately I have been allowed to convert the cellar into a workshop so fingers cross it will work out for me.

Out of interest, what you do think you'd need for a decently equipped workshop?

saspro

Danny boy wrote: »

Thanks for all of the replies and helpful feedback.

@saspro

I live in Winchester and would want to cover the Hampshire area, I was planning on charging £20 an hour to start off with.

Far too cheap. Your competitors for small businesses are charging £70-£100 an hour. If you're too cheap then you're going to look like you're doing it for pin money and won't be trusted with business networks.

Remember you need to plan your rates based on working 1-2 hours a day on average (worst case scenario).


Workshop wise you'll need the following:

Screwdrivers
Pliers
Cutters
A PSU tester

A known working PC
An external caddy to put customers drives in (for recovery or virus cleaning)
A couple of external HDD's & usb flash drives
A switch

I'd also keep a couple of old video cards, fans, a stick or two of RAM & a PSU for swapping things out to diagnose issues (before ordering the customers new parts)

You're mainly going to be doing software based work & parts changing so you don't need expensive electronics equipment.

tru504187211

What helped me in a similar situation (although I still have the FT job), was Helping Computer Technicians become Computer Business Owners - Technibble.

EXTREMELY helpful professionals that do this for a living.

EDIT: It took time, experience, patience, MUCH hard work, prayer and research, but after a few years, I have business coming out of my ears.