for those who build pc's for an income

[Joe_Hardware]

Good thread. Concerning new builds...

I can build a machine for $700 and compete prices wise with dell/compaq/gateway in terms of hardware and parts but I dont see how you can match the bundled software these companies throw around.

I mean OS+Antivirus+Misc and your up another $150-$200 dollars.

I'm currently doing it on the side just for friends and familly as favors. Just from that I dont see how it could be that profitable (unless you take the leap and do it on a large scale, sayordering 5-10 machines at once). Heck just ordering parts takes a few hours, let alone building, formatting and installing software to only make $100-200 per machine.

Maybe I'm spoiled but I get $65/hr vb programming and no way I'm doing tech support "on the side" for $15-$20 and hour.

[Makaze]

so certification wise... or schooling wise... where is the best place to start. I keep hearing A+ or something along those lines? I figured I'd post the question here since this is concerning people who do this for a living... I'm looking at getting into this pretty heavily and just wanted to know what most people do for before hand certification or education...

[jak]

right now im only charging 15 an hour for anything done, i take old pcs and upgrade, i build and charge about cost + 50%, i base mine usually like 1 or 200 less than a dell of equivellent performance, uhh if i have to travel to them, i charge time travelled also, once i pass more tests and exams, plan on teh a+ next month ill up it some more
jack

[Master Chief]

Great thread guys. Ive just been asked to build 2 machines and I think Im gonna charge 100 bones for each. I havent talked to the clients yet so I dont know exactly what they want other than a whole new machine. Good info here to go on though. Thanks.!

[Centurion]

edit

[John Prophet]

To Joe hardware.

Well, I think the assumption here might have been that most of us are NOT making $65/hr. hehe. yeah if I made that kind of jack I wouldnt do repairs at all, I would do one system at a time for fun and make $200 bucks on it and move on.

Look at it from my point of view. I just got into comps about 2 years ago...got my A+ cert and got a job building comps...MAKING MINIMUM WAGE at 34 years old..ouch...after a year I was all the way up to a whopping $8.25/hr. A far cry from $65/hr.

So it isnt a far stretch to see why I would rather do it on my own.

if it takes me 10 hours to make $250..isnt that better than 42 hours to clear $300??

And I am looking into licensing but I havent found out much yet..the lady who gives licenses (along with the planning/zoning commitee) told me they wouldnt give a license to sell out of your home so I suppose I will have to get a license to go do repairs etc...then attempt to sell that way.

My main hangup now is that I accumulated LOTS of parts to build comps with..several thousand dollars worth anyway...and I am not sure about going into business with this much stock on hand if I have to declare it all and pay taxes on it all as an "assett"...and now it is more complicated cuz I bought it all last tear and now is a new year blah blah. Building a comp is childs play compared to the rocket science of trying to be legal about it.

JP

[custompccases]

I started my own business about 2 years ago. I called around town and found out comp people charge 50$-90$ I find this crazy since locally here in oregon there is no way someone is going to pay 90$ for labor. When I started I charged 20$ hour.

I quickly found out that being all in one guy that does everything will really make things easier and rake in more dough. Being just a repair guy will severely hurt your business at least in my area, where there isn’t allot of clients. Go to every local business and give them your card and offer your services.

Advertising is the most important thing you could do. I was lucky and knew allot of mod people that I originally did my business using them as a middle man. As soon as I got my name known through about 20 other mod people that have their own businesses I knew it was time to start locally.

Have everything you could possibly need in your vehicle already before you go to the site (if you do house calls). I mean everything hd's cdrom's mobo's have at LEAST a whole extra system in parts a whole amd system and a whole Pentium system is the best to have around. You will be surprised in what you will need when your there. If you go full time make the vehicle your using a complete moving computer repair shop if you want to go far in the business.

You must get aquatinted with different os's and be familiarized with mac's insides. You will be constantly amazed when you go to peoples houses, roadents in computers, taped and hot glued stuff up the wazoo. Half fried wires, pornafied desktops, virus ridden computers. Spilt soda/beer any type of food/drink you could possibly think of will be smeared/spilt all over keyboards, monitors, and towers in some cases. Allot of jimmy rigged stuff. I could continue just make sure you bring extra mouse/keyboards incase a spilt drink has rendered one broken.

[John Prophet]

"mod" people?? You mean people that do comp mods?? Or people that dress like the 70's?

JP

[custompccases]

That mod computers...... I guess some dressed like the 70's...

[Makaze]

ok, question. when you say you provide "technical support" does that mean TS for the services you've already provided them. or just general, they think there is something wrong with their pc and they call you for whatever type TS?