Become a system builder?

[hardtofindinthefuture]

Hi, as a student at middle school 

i want to make some money by building basic PCs and selling them on ebay/amazon

 

Is there anything i should know before taking the plunge

 

 

Thanks

[stconquest]

Know the value of the parts you use. 

 

If you can learn what is worth what amount of money, you can sift through used parts and put decent PC's together and price them right... maybe up to a 20% markup... if you offer a warranty for your work.

 

Learn the market.

[Droidbot]

Take advantage of deals when you can.

Get parts as cheap as possible, including bad quality or very meh quality cases, but still make them to last -  get a decent cheap PSU like the Seasonic S12II. 

Please don't make clickbait-tier titles on eBay or Craigslist or whatever. 

Utilise the used market. 

[Enderman]

1) you won't make any money doing it

 

2) find a real job

 

3) the market is already saturated with builders

 

4) there are many other companies that buy bulk orders of parts and can undercut you by hundreds of dollars, so nobody will buy from you

 

5) sorry, the truth is though, even linus has said these facts several times.

[desertcomputer]

Nope unless you buying second hand item and refurbishing them yourself even than you have stay on website such as ebay/craigslist and look for good deals. Than you have clean it up and maybe buy some new prats such as case etc. Buying new parts and building is quite hard as there is already alot of company doing it and you won't able to match their prices unless you buy bulk. Better off getting a normal casual job. 

 

Go research first. 

[ARikozuM]

Prepare to not make money. Most of the money that a system builder (a common one) is from support. I had a store that I bought from and got insane deals on hardware and software for building show-pieces for them. I could build $500 rigs for about $300 making me a little more profit. 

 

Tips

Start learning your audience (neighbors)

See what they likely need

Start working at a tech store, even if it is Best Buy (though middle school might mean you're about 12-15)

Learn how to do networking, i.e. running cables through the attic and to a central box, setting up a media server, etc. 

Learn how to diagnose and fix issues.

Don't be afraid of doing a garage sale once a month to sell your PCs and knowledge.

[aeroencychris]

Personally I've just done local work building based on their specific needs, then charging either a percent fee or ~$100 ontop of the original parts costs. It's by no means consistent and not a steady job. I just keep it as one thing I do when needed, but mostly just troubleshoot software. 

[hardtofindinthefuture]

7 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Start learning your audience (neighbors)

See what they likely need

Start working at a tech store, even if it is Best Buy (though middle school might mean you're about 12-15)

Learn how to do networking, i.e. running cables through the attic and to a central box, setting up a media server, etc. 

Learn how to diagnose and fix issues.

Don't be afraid of doing a garage sale once a month to sell your PCs and knowledge.

1. Ok

2. a pc DURR

3. to young

4. Already know

5. Yep

6. Afraid! What?

[Drak3]

Yes, every issue with faulty hardware is on you. If a GPU fails after a month of use, due to a fault with the card or another component, it's up to you to replace the GPU or offer a refund. You'll also be liable if you preinstall any software that turns out to be spyware/malware, water cooling loop mishaps, shipping mishaps, etc.

You also won't have many customers, and those that you do have will very likely be just a small ring of family and friends.

 

Sorry to crush dreams, but people don't often trust someone unless they have some tether to their work (ie. working at local shops that do custom builds, like @Thread212), and even then, sometimes they have to be from a larger company (like iBuyPower, CyberPCs)

 

You'd be better off working odd jobs until you can get a part time job legally, and studying various components of system building (use cases for certain GPUs, networking, basic NAS solutions, hardware troubleshooting, moderate software troubleshooting, Windows versions and alternative operating systems, etc.) Once you can get a job, ask around local PC shops.

[Paradine Sage]

Building the system and then selling it won't make you money.

 

The only way to make money as a system builder is to do made to order work, and even then you need a niche.

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, v0nn_toaster said:

2. a pc DURR

Not everyone needs a "PC". Maybe they want an HTPC or a NAS. A PC is a very generic term. If you can point them towards something that fills a specific gap, it'll work better in your favor.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Not everyone needs a "PC". Maybe they want an HTPC or a NAS. A PC is a very generic term. If you can point them towards something that fills a specific gap, it'll work better in your favor.

Agreed, even a MAC is a PC

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Not everyone needs a "PC". Maybe they want an HTPC or a NAS. A PC is a very generic term. If you can point them towards something that fills a specific gap, it'll work better in your favor.

 

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Not everyone needs a "PC". Maybe they want an HTPC or a NAS. A PC is a very generic term. If you can point them towards something that fills a specific gap, it'll work better in your favor.

Double post, but he is correct. If someone comes to you and says 'I want a custom NAS, show me options' you're gonna be unprepared if you just offer generic PCs. 

[Jiaweeeee]

Prepare to be bankrupt , and btw where are you going to get your funding for those GTX 1080 and shizz or are you gonna built some crap PC and try to sell it for premium price ?

[ARikozuM]

Come to think of it, last weekend I went to my old boss's mother-in-law's house to route Ethernet throughout the three floors and dropping WiFi hot-spots and wall plates. 

 

#DVMdoingIT

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, Jiaweeeee said:

Prepare to be bankrupt , and btw where are you going to get your funding for those GTX 1080 and shizz or are you gonna built some crap PC and try to sell it for premium price ?

He doesn't have to sell gaming PCs - he can build home PCs, NASs, etc. Priced competitively, he could sell quite a few. 

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Come to think of it, last weekend I went to my old boss's mother-in-law's house to route Ethernet throughout the three floors and dropping WiFi hot-spots and wall plates. 

 

#DVMdoingIT

I was out somewhere and my mum calls me because her laptop won't connect to the printer. I say 'I'm busy at the moment, I'll be home in a couple hours'

Get a call around 2 hours after I get home and my mum says 'I actually did it myself  - I got the printer working and even scanned a document and sent it using Gmail!'

Pretty sure I wiped away a tear when she said that haha, I have to do it everytime when I'm over there. 

[Jiaweeeee]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

He doesn't have to sell gaming PCs - he can build home PCs, NASs, etc. Priced competitively, he could sell quite a few. 

Assuming he builds those , still , he's in middle school . How much can he save up ? Is his parents gonna fund him ? I think a better idea would be pay2build . The customer list down the parts they want and he quotes them , afterwards the customer can decide to change part or pay 90% of the price and he builds them . Anyway if a middle schooler came to my house and told me he's a technician , I wouldn't dare hand over my PC anyway .... It's cute but no ....

 

[Clanscorpia]

6 minutes ago, Jiaweeeee said:

Assuming he builds those , still , he's in middle school . How much can he save up ? Is his parents gonna fund him ? I think a better idea would be pay2build . The customer list down the parts they want and he quotes them , afterwards the customer can decide to change part or pay 90% of the price and he builds them . Anyway if a middle schooler came to my house and told me he's a technician , I wouldn't dare hand over my PC anyway .... It's cute but no ....

 

What if that middle schooler had their A+ and N+ 

[Jiaweeeee]

1 minute ago, Clanscorpia said:

What if that middle schooler had their A+ and N+ 

Please hang the CCNA cert on their neck , then I would trust them .

[BuckGup]

Be prepared to get sued

[SCHISCHKA]

you can ask around for people who work in retail how much their company makes on pre-built computers. you can look at pre-built computers and compare to the retail price of the parts. I can tell you the margins on hardware is not much. When I was an undergraduate student in a new town, no job, no contacts; I made money buying ex-lease/second hand, then re-building or selling parts; that was pretty small income.

8 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

What if that middle schooler had their A+ and N+ 

that is not enough, thats just a license to be a cowboy technician. IT is full of cowboys who cannot run clean tidy cables or even setup furniture properly

[manikyath]

i'm gonna follow up @Enderman's opinion here:

1: check you're even of the minimal age to work (no clue where middle school is in the age category..)

--note, if you dont fit this check, dont bother reading further, because it stops then and there.--

2: ebay is SO saturated with bad system builders you'd literally just be "another idiot on the pile"

3: continuing in the crude language department: you have NOTHING to offer the custom pc market

4: even more: people dont care about custom PC's off ebay, they'll just go to their local best buy.

5: you'll be outpriced by everyone who has been in the market for longer.

6: building PC's isnt profitable, providing services is the profitable part.

7: if you dont want to end up in some serious greyzone, you need to register a company.

8: we have too many of these:

27 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

a cowboy technician. IT is full of cowboys who cannot run clean tidy cables or even setup furniture properly

if people encounter a one in a million shot problem with a system of yours, you're the one to blame. the gold isnt in what the cowboy can do, the gold is in what the cowboy cant. i talked a friend trough building a PC, with him not having ever seen the inside of a pc before, and me only having access to voice chat, and a parts list, no actual visual feedback.

dont be my friend's side of that story, if you want to bring something valuable to the table: become that guy that doesnt even need to see a computer to know what's up, get yourself at least some form of education to back that up, and dont bother getting a job before you're of the required age.

 

there's a cowboy every street corner, if you want to be exceptional, you need to become a wizard.

 

EDIT: PS, at my last job we had someone called "the cowboy" who would literally unplug *ALL* links between datacenters at once (in theory, if at that point something else failed, shit cant failover) on a friday afternoon to upgrade them "because it should just work", which because this is now a story, obviously didnt, and cost the non-cowboys a lot of their evening to actually get two links back up before the weekend because mr. cowboy dude had already clocked out for the day. DONT BE THE COWBOY, PLEASE

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

6: building PC's isnt profitable, providing services is the profitable part.

It's profitable if you're one of those people that sells a GT720 PC for $1500 as a "gaming super high power uber PC" and an extra $300 to have windows installed, with a $200 protection plan "just in case".

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

there's a cowboy every street corner, if you want to be exceptional, you need to become a wizard.

Is this a Space Balls reference? I feel like it's a movie reference...

[manikyath]

Just now, Enderman said:

It's profitable if you're one of those people that sells a GT720 PC for $1500 as a "gaming super high power uber PC" and an extra $300 to have windows installed, with a $200 protection plan "just in case".

that's not profit, that's a scam  (at least, in my book.)

 

should i rephrase that as "being an honest person building PC's isnt profitable"?