What to do? 5 years in tech

[worldbandy]

@marissa23 How did you get into it? Bought the business?

 

[marissa23]

@worldbandy Started with $4k worth of inventory on a credit card, built a website, and have been scaling it up ever since! We’re still working out of our garage and rent u-hauls for any order too big for our minivan. We hope by the end of this year we’ll have warehouse space and a cargo trailer.

 

[worldbandy]

@marissa23 How do customers find you? Competition?

 

[marissa23]

@worldbandy SEO, advertising, social media

 

[worldbandy]

@marissa23 Do you deliver, set all up and then take all back?

 

[marissa23]

@worldbandy Yeah if the customer wants all that! We charge different amounts for each service. Most of the time we do small orders where the customer picks up for free.

 

[itsjustmerae]

@skwebber Using your tech knowledge to help the world? I've got just the thing. I do in-home tech support for seniors. These are intelligent, successful retirees who are deliberately deceived by phone scammers and big box sales bros alike. It's the most gratifying career I can think of, and there is absolutely no end to the demand.

I educate them on why those scary popups/emails are NOT from legitimate companies, and explain to them that viruses have never happened since 2013, and never to give out their credit card or banking info.

I come right to them so they don't have to disconnect and lug a heavy tower and drop it off for some indeterminate amount of time. This also enables me to SEE exactly what's going on and help them in so many ways, e.g:

The cable company bro infected them with Fake Rental WiFi, which explains why they can't watch Netflix reliably on the TV that's 11 feet away from the router.

They're paying $350/mo for SUPER ULLTIMATE MEGA XXTREEM INTERNETS because the joker on the phone told them they needed it

They're infected with Webroot/McAfee/Norton, which twiddle their thumbs while 40 toolbars ravage their browser

And so on.

Feel free to poke me for advice. It's a good living.

 

[skwebber]

@itsjustmerae I would LOVE to do this!!!

 

[fallable]

@itsjustmerae Woha, this sounds like something I'd like to participate in.
How do you market your services, is this something you can subscribe to, or is per call basic.

 

[lordismyshepard]

@itsjustmerae I LOVE IT!!! I am interested. How to get into this business? Can I dm you?

 

[itsjustmerae]

Awesome. Yeah once you're confident, you can charge a lot of money and still be totally worth it. You're saving people tons of money and giving them the peace of mind that the average condescending computer joker cannot provide.

Certainly feel free to DM me. I'll give you the pdf link to my book that explains the current mess the residential IT industry is in and how to fix it.

I don't believe in subscriptions. I liberate them from most subscriptions (especially anything to do with fake security). Furthermore, if I did have a "phone support" subscription, I fear I'd turn into an all-you-can-call buffet! So I do everything on a per-call basis.

 

[tseleng]

@skwebber I mean, if you are are truly willing to transform your life from scratch then a lot is possible.

You never make as much money in business as you do running it from your home. The extremely low overhead of getting doing this a profound profit realization.

If I had it to do all over, I'd get a mixed use space. Live upstairs, rent out the other units, run my biz (sure phone repair) down stairs and rent out the other commercial space to a company that is complimentary to my own. This way you get business from their customers too.

If you don't have $400k for a down payment on a building, the getting a duplex is a very good idea. And you home office and live in the other half.

 

[skwebber]

@tseleng I have maybe 20k-30k cash at my disposal

 

[tseleng]

@skwebber Are you employed at the moment?

 

[skwebber]

@tseleng Yessir

 

[tseleng]

@skwebber So you may be able to qualify for a loan on a duplex.

If you can get total rent 25% higher than the mortgage, you can apply for another loan on a new house without the first mortgage counting against your debt to income ratio. Two duplexs would be 3 rents, plus a roof over your head. If you could get that second house with a large garage, you could turn it into a work space for yourself and deduct a % of the bills and mortgage as a business expense.

It would take a year or two to make it all happen, but that is a strong place to operate from for phase "next".

The downside with not counting the first house against your debt ratio is when you sell it you have to pay taxes on it. But you can do a 1031 exchange and sell the first house, not pay any tax and roll that money into a small multi family. Also not easy, but doable, just gotta be scrappy and savy.

 

[skwebber]

@tseleng Right now, I own a house that I rent out. The mortgage plus HOA plus fees is about 1500, the rent is 2400. Maybe I can leverage that? It’s also worth probably about 80k more than what I bought it for

 

[tseleng]

@skwebber You should be able to qualify for a new home with no other hoops. I'd talk to a mortgage broker, get the paperwork front loaded, then start shopping with an agent.

A broker will be able to get you pre-qualified and can coach you through the whole process. They would (should) be thrilled at the idea of coaching a new client that intends to buy and sell a number of properties in a few short years.

 

[skwebber]

@tseleng So I could just look for brokers in my area and ask one of them to show me the ropes?

 

[tseleng]

@skwebber Yep, they will take a deep dive into your finances and find the most advantageous path forward. I prefer large independent brokers instead of banks.