Opening a Business, good idea?

[aznspyder]

I am thinking about opening my own business and I would like your opinions.

The business is on-site computer repair, virus removal, spyware removal, network installation, computer upgrade services, and more. I would offer prices well below the competition (compared to the Best Buy Geek Squad) and give a guarantee of satisfaction.

I am an expert in all of these fields and am very confident of my abilities.

What do you guys think? Any tips or pointers? Btw, I live in Riverside, California in case any of you are from here.

 

[Dane D.]

Be prepared to deal with all kinds of people. If you cannot deal with people in a civil manner than do not venture into business. Make your service costs clear, and concise. Make sure the customer knows how to pay and when it is due. Do not price yourself too low or you end up with so much work and little to show for it. Establish yourself, use respect toward the customer, even when he/she is clearly wrong. A calm, cool-headed approach goes along way with people. Never let the customer see you 'sweat', people like confidence. Good service at fair pricing, done in a timely manner will get you far. I speak from experience. Before I had children, I was a wedding photographer for 13 years. I dealt with all kinds of people and all kinds of situations and locations.

 

[timswim78]

You may want to insure and bond yourself. Also, get agreement terms forms that people need to sign before you work on their machines.

 

[Nickygoat]

Get advice from an accountant and a lawyer.
The lawyer will give you a thorough run down on your legal responsibilities - and there are a lot more than you will realise.
A good accountant is worth their weight in gold - mine has more than outweighed his charges, and I don't think we could function without him. It helps that we send him a lot of business
Get as many opinions as possible on your chosen ones - there are a lot of useless ones out there. Recommendations from people you already know are often the best, but you obviously have to weigh up their integrity.
Hope it succeeds

 

[sigamy]

Yeah, get ready to meet some real *interesting* people. You are going to be in the service industry and that means the customer is always right. You'll be dealing with many nice, understanding people but you will also get some that no matter what you do you will not be able to satisfy them.

Get ready for the late night calls that say, "you were here last week removing that virus and now my daughter can't print and she has a paper due tomorrow morning." You'll get all types of these--and even if you had absolutely nothing to do with the printer it will still be your problem.

Sorry to be negative. good luck with it and report back to us.

 

[iGary]

Make sure you get at least a million dollars in liability insurance.

Best advice that came to the top of my head.

 

[Mord]

remember 3/4 of businesses fail, what makes yours more likely to get more work than those 3/4.

oh and dont give people pirate software without telling them, some friends who think they are hardcore did and now they have allot of angry customers.

 

[scibry]

I was going to do something similar in New York and I circulated my name to see what kind of people were interested in my help. It's tough. There was once guy with a full page flyer listing everything he does and he is certified in many ways. There's some heavy competition.

You will indeed get people with questions far beyond what you were ready to answer/repair and they will have little patience to go through the procedures necessary to assess their problem properly or even quickly fix it on their own.

That being said who better to work for than yourself!