Computer Repair/Build Business

[MotherBoardEater11]

My friend and I are working on starting a computer Building/Repairing business. Building because that is what we mainly want to do, and repairing because from our research, you basically need to do repairs to have any chance at success. Anyway, we have a very, very low budget at least for now which makes getting ourselves out there a bit difficult. Craigslist, offerup, and a few other similar sites wont let our ads stay up, which is fair, because that is technically against their rules, just a bit frustrating, because for the brief time that craigslist was allowing it, it was helping us quite a bit. We have business cards, because, well it's cheap, and useful. Other than that our budget will be $0 for a while until we can be a bit more confident, and well also, we may or may not be 15 so money is limited. For now we just want to get enough work to keep some momentum with this as a bit of a side thing, but in the future would like to pursue the idea of getting into some retail space and going for gold. For now though, is there any specific place to go or thing to do for little to no money that can help us get our name out there? Also what kinds of ads are and are not worth it? I've heard that a lot of ads marketed for small businesses are complete wastes of money. To be completely honest I don't know if I am posting this in the right place, if not could you point me in the right direction? I have already posed in several small business and entrepreneurship subreddits, and I didn't get a whole lot of traction from what I learned there, but I was thinking there may be somebody here who has started a business like this in the past? Anyways, thank you even just for reading this, whether you know any good advice or not, I still appreciate the time that you took to read this, and if you can help me, that would be great! 

[TetraSky]

You could do Door To Door, it's free, just cost your time... You'll annoy a great majority of people, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

 

If you had any sort of budget, I would've said to make small pamphlets and deliver them to a few places around where you "operate"

 

There's this too:

https://makeawebsitehub.com/free-advertising/

But I haven't verified it at all, that's literally just the first site that came up by typing "business ads for free" on google.

[The1Dickens]

Can't do anything with a budget of $0. But with a few bucks, you can get a ream of the cheapest printer paper (~$6USD for ~300 sheets), print fliers at 2-per-sheet, cut the sheets in half for 600 fliers, then hit up local parking lots. Not the most glamorous method, but it's cheap. If you don't have a printer, Kinko's (or your local equivalent print store) can print the fliers, though it will cost more than 1c/flier.

 

Besides that, word of mouth. You can go to where there are groups of people, and stage conversations where you and your friend casually talk moderately loudly about "your own experience with the repair center". Especially near and/or in PC sales places.

 

As for the budget: Try to split the income, for example, 40/40/20, with you and your partner making the 40, and the 20 going back into the company to buy more paper, refill gas tanks, or hold until you get a decent budget. From there, putting ads into PennySavers or similar would be your best bet (quick look-see and the NY PennySaver rates are about $22USD per zone, or $88USD for all 5 zones).

 

Starting young is a great choice, so long as you don't run out and blow all the money you make from each job.