First Two Start-Ups didn't Work, Help with Third

[stlsmoore]

Hey all I've started two start-ups before with them both being very similar. The first was a simple PC Support business which was fairly successful for how little money my partner and I put in ($60). However I was offered my first career position and took that since I was dead broke with a lot of loans.

My second just wasn't well thought out because I was working with two other partners and myself. As we're building the start-up our idea changed from one thing (selling used PC's) back to focusing on PC Support. Well things just kind of fell apart and it felt like there were to many cooks in the kitchen nothing really got done.

Well as of this week I've quit my pretty good paying but very unpleasant IT contract with a well known financial company. The main reason was I was sick of working 12 hour night shifts 7 PM-7AM doing a job that I didn't have passion for. I think I'm in a pretty good position to try my hands on starting an IT Consulting company in my region.

I have about $5,000 in the bank, I'm living at home, my car is paid off, and my only debt is my student loan. However I pre-paid on that a little bit so if it comes down to it I don't have to make a payment until October 09. I'm really ready to jump in and start this thing but I don't know where to begin! I could use any help or suggestions, I'm going to start with market research, a simple business plan, and hopefully join some type of SBA club. I would also like any help on ideas on how to boot-strap this as much as possible...thanks in advance!

[ijohn]

what is your business idea?

[Proph]

first thing you need to do is set up a LLC or s-corp. Find a good local cpa that focuses on small business, spend the $300 to talk to them and have them help you set up what will best fit your business model.

After you have incorporated you need a website, a professional looking one with all the information and contact info. A place where people can find you and get the information about your company that they need to feel confident enough to give you a call, remember the people looking at this website will more than likely not be IT people or will have very little IT knowledge so bomb away on the buzzwords.

Next, you need some customers. Simply having an IT consulting website isn't going to get you anywhere on its own, now its time for some marketing. First off I would go after customers that don't already have a competitor that is entrenched. Google around and see if there are any local SBA start up conferences. I don't know about st louis but a lot of major cities have these a couple times a year. At these places you will find companies just starting out or expanding their businesses and you can get them before your competition even knows they exist. Also check out Entrepreneurship . It wouldn't hurt to give some venture capitalist in the area a call/email. Not because you need money, but try to get on their radar that if they do invest in a start up you are the one to handle their IT needs. If they feel comfortable with you, well…. they now own 30%+ of some new company and can force the decision to bring you in.

After you have gotten yourself visible to the new business scene its time to crack existing businesses, which in itself is a full time job and a much longer story.

[myfayt]

Hi there, I am 25 years old and on my 5th business. I can help you.

My first three businesses were a flop, I got excited and jumped into them and failed. At least I didn't put much money in them. Many of the top 100 worldwide businesses were started with $500. It's not impossible to do, you can open a restaurant with five hundred bucks, it's not impossible.

My 4th business was fairly successful, I had a vinyl sign making company, had it for 15 months and did $35,000 in sales during that time. However I advertised in the newspaper and yellow pages and it failed to bring any business and I went bankrupt. Which taught me that advertising that way was the worse thing to do.

If you want to do a computer repair business, you need to stay on top and be ahead of the rest. You can do this really easily by being prepared and offering good services. How? Such as answering the phone every time it rings and don't be too busy to answer it. If a customer walks in, stop what your doing and assist that customer, that makes them happy. Also offer something like, all repairs will be completed in 48 hours, except if parts need to be ordered. Also if someone spends a couple hundred bucks on some repairs and also wants like new memory put in, don't charge them an install fee, say hey ill put it in labor free for you.

All of these things will keep customers coming back to you. Make it a friendly place and use business cards, flyers and word of mouth. If you operate in your home, pay the residential fee for commercial home business. Here in Virginia it's $13.00 a year and it allows me to have customers come over to the studio.

VERY IMPORTANT you do not want to jump into a high rent place and hope the location draws customers, this is terrible overhead and will bankrupt you. Paying $1,000 a month in a start up business will drown you. If you must do rent and there is no other way, get something around $350 a month and build your way up. Also find a renter who is willing to throw in the first months rent for free since you are just starting up. Some will do it.

[stlsmoore]

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's been two months and I had to do a lot of soul searching to decide what I REALLY wanted to do. While I knew I could fix PC's with ease it's not something I had a passion for. I knew I liked different aspects of IT so I thought long in hard what my favorite things to do in IT was. The decision came down to Network Engineering. Out of all the IT jobs I had the networking and designing of a company network really intrigued me. With that said i needed to figure out where to go from there.

Well in networking there's a really good IT certification called the CCNA that's highly respected in the IT world. So that's what I've been doing for the past two months is studying for this cert and I can honestly say I loved every minute of it! I'm just about complete and once I'm done that should open up tons of opportunities for me. A few years down the road if I find i still enjoy it as much as I do now and have a much more expert understanding (along with higher up certs) I will go the consulting route with this. This IT field will hopefully be niche when I get around to starting it. I've been receiving a few calls for network engineer contracts and I'm not even finished yet so needless to say I'm optimistic!

(p.s. I have my blog detailing my progress so far in my signature but warning there's a lot of geekology so you may not understand a lot of the jargon I'm spitting out!)