Starting a custom pc building service question

[Austin0x50]

I know it's a market where bigger more popular companies have the majority of the market, but for someone who is 20 years old and has been building computers since he was probably 12 so, would it be a bad idea to even look into something like building pc's for people and taking a smaller cut for service and labor as other companies? Also I am very aware that a 20 year old making good computers and trust is probably something very weary of a customer. It's something I would like to do but I understand the hardship of such a business.

[Slottr]

If you're extremely serious about this, take a course on small business. It will help you immensely

[r2724r16]

The chance that your business will ever be successful is very slim.

 

I'm pretty sure most people aren't comfortable getting a $2000 PC built by a shady 20 year old. True PC enthusiasts will build their own PC, while people who don't know much about PCs will buy a prebuilt from HP, DELL, Lenovo, etc.

[XR6]

1 minute ago, r2724r16 said:

The chance that your business will ever be successful is very slim.

 

I'm pretty sure most people aren't comfortable getting a $2000 PC built by a shady 20 year old. True PC enthusiasts will build their own PC, while people who don't know much about PCs will buy a prebuilt from HP, DELL, Lenovo, etc.

The business could easily fail unless you market it. If nobody knows it nobody will care about it.

There are examples of what OP wants to do readily available on the internet. Search up Carey Holzman on youtube and you'll see what I mean. With enough marketing (in this case the youtube channel) he has successfully managed to get his business to work. 

 

 

[QuantumBit]

Like the others say, it will probably fail, like @Slottr said, some knowledge about business will help a lot, but it just simply isn't that profitable and people don't really know much about custom building, and when they do, they opt to do it themselves. You're much better off starting something like a PC repair business.

Or you install a 1 year copy of windows for $50 bucks and tell the people it's a lifetime copy.... works for the guy that put windows on my PC

[DavidKalinowski]

Read your market, you town/city what kind of competition will you face? you will need financial backing/capital to get started. No one will pay you up front they will expect you to buy the parts then they pay for the service etc. check with your local city ordinances on business licensing etc. I've been where you are, and I ended up just being an on call tech for random people. I made 100-200 a month. Because I couldn't get any banks to lend me money. It is hard to get started, harder to survive, but if you can do it, you could make a decent living. I used my time doing it as experience for me resume, now I work at a college, I have good retirement benefits and company paid health care, and I still get to build/fix/play with computers and technology.

 

Good luck, just be prepared. Like others have said, take some college courses. Business law, accounting, principles of management at the least. (get a couple computer certs, compTIA A+ and NetWork+ will make consumers trust you more, you can then advertise as a certified computer technician) remember Steve Jobs didnt do much in the tech department, that was Steve Wozniak but jobs ran the company, and gets all the credit.