Starting up a watercooled PC business?

[asim1999]

Here is my idea: to start the UKs first dedicated watercooled PC business. You may ask, we already have them: these are systems that companies such as Scan charge a premium for, and provide little to no customisability  options, with stupid prices. The US is flooded by watercooling companies, such as Falcon Northwest and Digital Storm who do this thing

 

When do it? At university. The university i plan to go to support student businesses , so it might be a good idea.  Still got 2 years to go until uni, so i am just asking for feedback

 

Who do i have on my side: Well i do have a close friend who is also a techie, who loves my idea, and is actually a very successful student fundraiser in the West Midlands who has organised small business ventures, charities and has partnered up with others like the BBC in the past. 

Also, i have my maths teacher who has actually done a small watercooling business while he was at university and made pretty big bucks with it in the few years he was doing it. 

 

And i have a ton of techies at my math's teachers space project, with one guy who has a 4770K and 660Ti Build, and i am assuming others will when i reach uni. 

 

Do you think it is a good idea for a future plan?

 

 

[Prokart2000]

im not sure how to help you, but i would buy from it when im older and has the monies and seems like a good idea, try to offer something different

[Extingquish]

Unless you're quite good at watercooling, they guys that are usually interested in watercooling do it themselves IMO

[asim1999]

Unless you're quite good at watercooling, they guys that are usually interested in watercooling do it themselves IMO

True, but then why are people like Digital Storm so successful?

[Extingquish]

True, but then why are people like Digital Storm so successful?

They've been around for ages + people will partly buy the PCs for the case

 

EDIT: when I say they've been around for ages, I mean they've built up a good reputation 

[Tripnator]

To be honest a terrible idea unless you get good business insurance and you have enough money to pump into the business if it goes wrong. If you are just selling in your local area it might work but if not you will have issues with warrentys and if anything went wrong the customer would want you to ship it backwards and forwards which will cost alot!

[asim1999]

To be honest a terrible idea unless you get good business insurance and you have enough money to pump into the business if it goes wrong. If you are just selling in your local area it might work but if not you will have issues with warrentys and if anything went wrong the customer would want you to ship it backwards and forwards which will cost alot!

Cool, but i can mod my cases with WIFI RGB LEDs if i wanted to. Would that be a good selling point?

[Extingquish]

Cool, but i can mod my cases with WIFI RGB LEDs if i wanted to. Would that be a good selling point?

I personally wouldn't think so, but then I'm more of a DIY guy 

[asim1999]

I personally wouldn't think so, but then I'm more of a DIY guy 

True, nice little rig u have there

[airdeano]

not to put a damper on your idea/dream, it takes mega capital to start a boutique

building center. and a vast majority for that will be advertising. and for all that

you might skate by as the only employee. everybody with any PC knowledge

will have the same opportunity as you and all it will take is money and advertising.

i would not specialize in any one-thing as it limits your sales and consumer pool

with a small amount of business sales.

 

custom watercooling is a very niche market, no real value other than aesthetically

pleasing to look at, adds no more performance to money value, and for a business

deffo not a necessity. only way to compete with already established boutiques is

to undercut their pricing structure (which will limit your profitability) and more

advertising budgets (more profit cutting, less money in your pocket).

 

what you see on the surface are these big price tags and glorious builds, what you

don't see is the actual total cost involved, time/money and logistics and those

margins are rather thin.

[Tripnator]

True, nice little rig u have there

why dont you see if there is a mainstream company near you that would could work for and get some good experience? As diving right in might be fun but could cost alot. 

[Mikeyj426]

Most people imo would want to do it themselves, but to really gain a leg up on the competition you should make your own cases either with Plexiglas or acrylic of something of the sort.

[Kermit]

Maybe instead of a modding business you could start a water-cooling component company (pumps, rads, tubing, fiitings, etc...

 

Although this is much higher risk (manufacturing outsourcing) than just starting a small home-grown company.

[Guest]

Here is my idea: to start the UKs first dedicated watercooled PC business. You may ask, we already have them: these are systems that companies such as Scan charge a premium for, and provide little to no customisability  options, with stupid prices. The US is flooded by watercooling companies, such as Falcon Northwest and Digital Storm who do this thing

 

When do it? At university. The university i plan to go to support student businesses , so it might be a good idea.  Still got 2 years to go until uni, so i am just asking for feedback

 

Who do i have on my side: Well i do have a close friend who is also a techie, who loves my idea, and is actually a very successful student fundraiser in the West Midlands who has organised small business ventures, charities and has partnered up with others like the BBC in the past. 

Also, i have my maths teacher who has actually done a small watercooling business while he was at university and made pretty big bucks with it in the few years he was doing it. 

 

And i have a ton of techies at my math's teachers space project, with one guy who has a 4770K and 660Ti Build, and i am assuming others will when i reach uni. 

 

Do you think it is a good idea for a future plan?

Yes! I also plan to build computers for my school. Right now the 3D modeling and coding "class" that I am taking next year is run off of 10+ year old XP Dell computers. I can get a Pentium G3258 PC with a GTX 650 for $380 for my school. I could build like the 30 that we need and raise the price about $100. Boom $3000 in a few days of building. And with that money of course I'm getting Titan X SLI with a ROG Swift.

[Kermit]

Yes! I also plan to build computers for my school. Right now the 3D modeling and coding "class" that I am taking next year is run off of 10+ year old XP Dell computers. I can get a Pentium G3258 PC with a GTX 650 for $380 for my school. I could build like the 30 that we need and raise the price about $100. Boom $3000 in a few days of building. And with that money of course I'm getting Titan X SLI with a ROG Swift.

 

lucky my school runs off of macs fml

[airdeano]

I can get a Pentium G3258 PC with a GTX 650 for $380 for my school. I could build like the 30 that we need and raise the price about $100. Boom $3000 in a few days of building. 

 

one thing to note is that you build it for money, then you get to support it for

warranty terms. you have $11,400 laying around to build PC rigs to make

$3000 for your school, your school will report the purchase and you'll

receive a 1099 for taxes (which you'll have to pay as a public entity like a

school will report the sale) which you will have to pay about $1200-$1350

in federal taxes and some for state taxes.

[Guest]

one thing to note is that you build it for money, then you get to support it for

warranty terms. you have $11,400 laying around to build PC rigs to make

$3000 for your school, your school will report the purchase and you'll

receive a 1099 for taxes (which you'll have to pay as a public entity like a

school will report the sale) which you will have to pay about $1200-$1350

in federal taxes and some for state taxes.

True, but I know the people at my local Microcenter (like 20 minutes away) and I bet that if I buy in bulk, then I would get a solid discount. Tax is only 6.5% in Ohio so the bulk discount could cover a little bit of the difference from what they give me. My dad just blows money on things that I tell him I will never use and that I don't need (like random hipster clothes that cost hundreds) so the money laying around could be from his back pocket and I could pay him back. It was his idea and I still need to figure out all of the logistics with him before I contact my school. Also, you are always really helpful around the forum. 

[airdeano]

yes, contact the purchasing agent (usually the school districts comptroller) about

contracting technology upgrade for your school. you'll find it isn't as easy to just

walk in and hand them a quote. usually a bidding process to get the cost down

and affordable. because the district (not just the indie school) prolly has the same

builds district wide and if they need replacing, then they'd want all replaced. they

too work on bulk purchasing (hence they are using Dell XP machines that they

paid $80-$125 each). so, you build them a $500 machine to do what with exactly

(a question they will ask)? other than web crawling, internet research, nominal

communications and non-intensive applications they won't need 10x application

power. for those machines needing specific demands, the limited minimums

are the best for their cost needs.

 

6.5% is sales tax of retail merchandise.

state tax is income revenue (usually 8-14%) of net taxable income.

[Psykomantis00]

How many years of experience do you have building water cooled systems? 

[Guest]

yes, contact the purchasing agent (usually the school districts comptroller) about

contracting technology upgrade for your school. you'll find it isn't as easy to just

walk in and hand them a quote. usually a bidding process to get the cost down

and affordable. because the district (not just the indie school) prolly has the same

builds district wide and if they need replacing, then they'd want all replaced. they

too work on bulk purchasing (hence they are using Dell XP machines that they

paid $80-$125 each). so, you build them a $500 machine to do what with exactly

(a question they will ask)? other than web crawling, internet research, nominal

communications and non-intensive applications they won't need 10x application

power. for those machines needing specific demands, the limited minimums

are the best for their cost needs.

 

6.5% is sales tax of retail merchandise.

state tax is income revenue (usually 8-14%) of net taxable income.

Did not know about the 8-14% tax (thanks!). I've tried photoshop on the ancient computers before and it's pretty bad. But they expect me to take a 3D modeling class with 12 year old integrated. That's like saying, "Oh you want to be a photographer? Take this $5 Kodac." I bet that I could just cut out the external GPU, though. Thanks so much for the information.

[asim1999]

Please tell me about the tax levels in the UK as i dont live in the US

[Tiby]

Think about this: how much time does it take you to build a watercooled PC based on customer requirements? Now multiply that by 10-15 orders per day and estimate the shipping time (that is if you get all the systems from the first try). Add the time you may need to come back to each customer for parts that are no longer available or just won't fit and you should see if it's worth it or you just want to make it as a hobby (like most of us do actually). Keep in account that most people are anxious to receive their product as soon as possible and will demand refund if there are delays or find cheaper products at different store.

Running a business is quite different than doing this for pleasure.

[airdeano]

Please tell me about the tax levels in the UK as i dont live in the US

i haven't the foggiest what the tax rate is in the UK, you should consult an account

for this information. but judging from some articles i have read in the past, i'd say

the pay rate is the same or more in the UK.

[McMurderMonkey]

not to put a damper on your idea/dream, it takes mega capital to start a boutique

building center. and a vast majority for that will be advertising. and for all that

you might skate by as the only employee. everybody with any PC knowledge

will have the same opportunity as you and all it will take is money and advertising.

i would not specialize in any one-thing as it limits your sales and consumer pool

with a small amount of business sales.

 

custom watercooling is a very niche market, no real value other than aesthetically

pleasing to look at, adds no more performance to money value, and for a business

deffo not a necessity. only way to compete with already established boutiques is

to undercut their pricing structure (which will limit your profitability) and more

advertising budgets (more profit cutting, less money in your pocket).

 

what you see on the surface are these big price tags and glorious builds, what you

don't see is the actual total cost involved, time/money and logistics and those

margins are rather thin.

^^^This.

Couldn't have said it better myself.