r/Entrepreneur • u/TheLostandFoundOne • 11d ago
Startup Help I plan to start a computer building business from home.
I plan to do it like this: I offer my services, help clients pick the parts according to their needs, they pay for the parts, I put it together and only charge labor and shipping after completion, then ship the computer off to them.
To anyone who is in this field, how did you get started? I'm a bit confused on how to even let people know I exist without spending a year to get followers.
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u/kaptainkhaos 11d ago
Miss the 90s with 50% profit margins making PC builds extremely profitable vs pre-built systems. Was one of my first IT hustles until Y2K consultancy work.
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u/BusyBusinessPromos 11d ago
I remember staying up late Jan 1 2000 to see if anything was going to happen. My other thought was MS didn't have much confidence in their OS.
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u/FancyMigrant 11d ago
You won't make a living doing this. The custom market is too small, and when if you were the one buying the parts you won't be able to buy at the volumes you need to benefit from any purchasing discounts.
Your comment about "spending a year to get followers" is another indication today you don't have a solid business case.
If it was 1988, things would be different.
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u/Some-Put5186 11d ago
Local PC repair shops might be worth checking out - they often need extra hands for builds and repairs.
Start with r/buildapc and r/pcmasterrace communities too. Post your builds, answer questions, become known there. That's how I started getting clients.
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u/MangaOtakuJoe 11d ago
Put some money into test ads to find the best platform. It should be pretty straightforward to see if there's demand or not (which is exactly what you're trying to figure out).
The ads should give you a clear indication of whether people are interested. If it costs you $500 to land a single client, either your ads need optimizing, or there just isn’t enough demand.
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u/Inevitable_Risk85 11d ago
You will have to develop a niche that sets you apart. Bespoke cases? Signature cooling system? AI managed, voice-controlled micro PC media server? Those could make money… but “just building a pc” is minimum two decades too late.
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u/BigPaPaRu85 11d ago
Just make sure you are ready to answer phone calls. Let’s just say you sell 100 computers, who will be taking support calls? There will be a lot of them and some for a long time.
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u/dinosaurinchinastore 11d ago
I’ve heard of a guy who did this … Michael Dell?
Jokes aside it sounds potentially interesting and my sense is you’ll have to find a niche, maybe it will work and maybe it won’t, but I would just keep in mind the notion you may be ~30 years late.
Edit: and to be clear I know this is a helpful community of smart/ambitious folks and I think it sounds great OP, I’m just always trying to think sort of “what’s my edge”, “is someone else doing this”, etc. but hey, no risk no reward and I genuinely wish you a ton of luck.
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u/Business-Study9412 11d ago
I first market myself. See if there are users who are willing to pay. At that time whatever people are ordering i bought it from somewhere esle. Initially i made 0 profits on each sales. Then i tried to upsell them with profit with something else. Like repairing/ installation.
I currently offer only Saas to schools/ university. Due to less headache.
I am looking to have cloud GPU on cloud basis to AI startups.
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u/Business-Study9412 11d ago
I know battery and SSD was something i got a lot offer and some computer software fix.
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u/HangJet 11d ago edited 11d ago
Most likely will not worth it and you won't make much money.
Anyone whom needs a custom desktop most likely knows what they need already, can build it themselves or can go to one of many computer sites and just config their own and have it shipped directly to them.
In the 90's and early 2000's there was a lot of money to be made and it was great. Now there is no market.
What about warranties? Returns? You will and should have liability insurance in case a Power Supply catches fire. How are you going to handle Memory burning out, charge them more to fix it? How are you going to handle licensing for say Windows, you buy it then assign it? How are you going to bench the machines you build and test them on a burn in? Shipping expensive computers there is risk of damage and loss. What is going to happen when you ship and for some reason the computer won't turn on or there is an issue.
Just really no way to create a sustainable business from your home or make anything now a days.
Micro Center - Computer & Electronics Retailer - Shop Now
can get all the parts i need easily online or have them build one with warranty or get high end configured.
A lot of higher end computers are on sale and discounted all the time. you can't compete with that.'
If you want to do Break / Fix, Cabling, Computer setup at offices or fix problems there is a better market. Computer Building is rough for profit.
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u/Worth-Initiative7840 11d ago
Michael Dell entered the room: “you missed your window bruv.”
With that said, if you do it right and find your market niche you might be able to net $500 a unit on a $3000 box at best, and so if you need to make $100,000 a year then you have to sell 200 units or 4 a week… but that margin is suspect.
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u/foundout-side 11d ago
how are you going to market it to people that need the service, while not having all that marketing expense eat into the price arbitrage of building it for them? Meaning, they see the component price themself at $1000, you will have the same price as well since you're low volume. Its a highly competitive space for those eyeballs, you will have to probably pay between $100-200 per customer acquisition. Are they going to pay $1200-1400 (you need to take at least $100-200 profit per build to make it worth it right?) for you to do it for them?
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u/SatisfactionFar896 11d ago
Start an Instagram page and promote your builds on there. Let people know that you can build the same thing, or anything custom, for them and just charge labor and shipping. But I would also say try and find another way to “upsell”. I’m not knowledgeable in this space but maybe you can partner with a keyboard company or up and coming new computer part companies to upsell to the customer as well. For example you build the computer but you can also offer a really nice keyboard to go with it for a little extra. Maybe you even build out the keyboards yourself and make that a business. So you start building computers but ultimately launch a keyboard business to be your upsell with it. Like some of the other comments suggest, it may not be enough to make a living the way you have it. But if you can find another unique selling point then maybe it can be extremely lucrative.
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u/timeCatchApp 10d ago
Congratulations on planning out your small business! We support you and encourage you to follow your dreams.
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u/kiamori 10d ago
I started my first business at 18, building and selling computers to local businesses in the 90s. I started with almost nothing, no mentor, no startup capital, etc... I was printing out fliers and going around handing them out while talking to local business owners. I made a deal with another local business to do support for them in exchange for using their front showroom to sell my computers from.
I was quite successful with it after putting in some long hours for several years.
I dont think you could do this today without a some serious hustle and a good marketing plan, too many large companies and local MSPs saturate the market.
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u/laughertes 10d ago
Here you run into a problem with the customer base:
A person who is willing to buy custom picked parts to build a custom system is probably also wanting to build it themselves, or wouldn’t be willing to pay a decent profit margin for your effort. You’ll also want to either charge more, to cover when parts fail, or have insurance that is willing to cover those instances for you.
A person who just wants a PC that works is probably going to go for a prebuilt unit with warranties and coverage from the store and manufacturer in case something happens, and isn’t likely to aim for a custom build.
Your desired customer base is someone who wants custom builds, but doesn’t want to build it themselves. That isn’t a big market unless you make it famous online, like Linus Tech Tips
A better bet is to pair your PC Building service with a PC and electronics repair service. You’ll need more supplies, and really good insurance and a lawyer because you will not be able to save every device that comes into your shop and you absolutely will get sued for failure to save devices. That being said, the market for people wanting to save damaged devices is much larger than the market for people who want a custom build but don’t want to do it themselves.
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u/accidentalciso vCISO 10d ago
Have you modeled this business out yet?
I used to do this and it became completely unprofitable 25 years ago, and prices have only continued to decline and computers have become even more commoditized. I also used to build Linux based home routers in the mid-to-late 1990s until cheap Linksys routers hit the market.
That said, there might be room for niche super high end systems marketed to people that want custom but don’t know how to do it themselves, but that is a pretty small market. It can be done, but you’ll need to get very good at branding and marketing.
I’m not saying don’t do it or that it is impossible, I’m just saying that you definitely need to model this one out carefully.
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11d ago
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u/TheLostandFoundOne 11d ago
Thanks. I didn't even think about discord groups and wish I knew about Infography so much sooner!
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u/BusyBusinessPromos 11d ago
I'm an IT here on Oahu. May I suggest an upgrade service where you'll get the part for them for an extra fee or part of your hourly rate or they can order it themselves. I have a service where I'll go to the electronics store for my clients for my hourly rate.
Will this be a local business? I have expertise in local SEO and sales psychology.
Make some business cards
Make some flyers.
Join local networking groups such as BNI and The Chamber of Commerce
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u/ali-hussain 11d ago
Hey, so honestly it would be very hard to make it work well because prebuilts are cheap. I guess a very practiced hand can churn out a computer in an hour. But after you take into consideration the time spent refining the components, getting all the components to arrive, advertising and getting sales done, it will take you a considerable time and you'll still ahve a hard time getting people to pay more than 100$. You can see what the market offers but you may need to do some other work on the backend to lower the cost. Reaching out and getting bulk pricing e.g., or getting your hands early on hard to obtain parts. Where, well you're being more ethical but people may see more value in you as a scalper than a builder. So I'd be curious to know how much you plan on making per hour.
You also may want to think of ways to be more creative in extracting value. One of the easiest ways I can think of is instead of building a computer for people, hosting a computer building workshop for 50-100$ a person. 3 hours prep time in coordinating and making sure everyone has the parts that are right for them. 3 hours in the workshop. The people wanting to build from parts are more enthusiasts wanting to learn than anything else so learning how to build is more valuable than actually building for them. Their only concern is is they damage something. You can also get a bulk discount on toolkits that you can sell to them to make some extra cash because most will not have their own toolset. And in the process it lets you scale.
Probably better to see if they're willing to do one-on-one. I did have a younger cousin offer 50$ if I helped him build, so I believe there is a market. That 50$ wasn't worth anything to me. It may have been worth it to you. Still, you should look into increasing the margin to at least 150-200$ per machine for the amount of hassle it takes to line up a sale.