Home Office/Small Business - IT Support

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Irishchappie

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I'm thinking about setting up a IT support operation aimed solely at small
businesses (under 10 employees) and home office based businesses.

It will be based in Dublin and I'm wondering if there is much of a market for it?

From any research I've done, a lot of people involved in a business of this
size and setup rely on friends for support or have no backup support,
however when a problem arises, they usually end up spending a small
fortune trying to get it resolved.

The idea would be to have a set price list, no call out fee and to keep costs
low by operating from my home. Also offer extended hours of sevice
including weekends as the average self employed person works at weekends
and may have issues at weekends.

The thing is, does anyone honestly think there is a market out there for it.

I.C
 
Just a few thoughts. Most small businesses I know would rely on the person selling the system or software to provide a back up service to them and would buy the system only where that backup is guaranteed. So if you could tap into that market by doing a deal with suppliers to provide after sales service that would be good. In my business ( solicitors) many of my colleagues are clueless when it comes to computers and do find it hard to get someone to provide this service. Although often you could find that their systems would be very old so maybe not easy to deal with. Bigger firms might well have an inhouse person so your market would be the smaller firms. Law Society runs an annual technology conference where software providers etc showcase their wares so that might be worth looking at. I presume many professions would have similar. Also we have to do CPD hours ( continuing professional development) and so many of the local law societys run seminars/conferences incorporating 'courses' in computers/internet-very basic stuff which might be a good pitch for you.
 
It will be based in Dublin and I'm wondering if there is much of a market for it?
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I would say that there's certainly a market for it.
However, you may find it difficult to get this target group to pay for your expertise.
 
You'd want to be very careful that you don't get paid too little for the hours you do. In my experience thats the balancing act. Most small business won't spend much on IT, and squeeze everything they can from you. Hard to make a profit from them. Which is why the smaller support guys target the home users. Theres a few people here and there offering small business IT support. I worked with a guy who was doing this and he eventually gave up because it was too hard to make it pay. He targeted bigger companies instead.

Anyone I know with a small business, knows just enough to get by or have a friend that helps them out.
 
Yeah I agree that it will be difficult to get started and getting my name known is the hard part. I suppose there are people and small companies out there who just dont want to spend the money on IT and thats up to them. I'm not going to try and convince someone who doesnt want to be convinced. I've been there and tried to do that, it just didnt work.

Where is a good place to advertise to get my name out there?

I've looked around smaller IT support operations and the prices they charge. So I've a fair idea what my costs and outgoings will be and how much to charge.

I've found in the past that most of the people I've dealt with are starting up and fairly open minded when it comes to technology. Especially if they are younger. They used me as a kind of one stop shop for everything technology related. I deal with suppliers, know the products and cant be bluffed by the sales guys who are trying to milk them for every penny.

One in particluar was setting up a small business and had 4 staff including himself.. they were quoted obscene amounts of money when looking to buy computers, a server, printers etc.. He asked me to help, purely because he didnt know anything about computers.

In the end I saved him approx 60% on the original figures being quoted. Now I just do small tasks for him, some house keeping on the systems making sure backups are running, AV up to date, license and support renewals and stuff like that. Its one less thing for him to worry about and I can do it on my own time, usually outside office hours and this suits him too.. It doesnt cost a small fortune either..

Thats the type of thing I'm looking to do.

The problem about becoming too specific as in selling and supporting particular software is that unless the company who's developing and providing the software doesnt keep up with the latest advances they can lose customers and this would put my business in jepordy. I've worked for a comany who did exactly this and a large portion of their staff were made redundant as a result.

So if I could add this to my options but dont want to depend on it for business.

Vanilla, mind if I pm you as I've a few questions that I would like to ask you.

I.C
 
I know a few of my friends are involved in local business groups. Where people agree to promote each other business. So you'd use a printer in the group to do your ads, they'd use you for the IT support etc. Ditto a web site etc. Perhaps something like that might be a good idea. Also consider attending a business startup class either in FAS or your local Library if they do such course. Might get you started on the right foot so to speak.

My main advice would be as follows. Know your costs, know what your time costs, don't do a job unless you are going to make a profit. Too many jobs at cost as self promotion will undermine your own worth. Don't compete with other companies if it means your not making a profit. Add some extra value, or target a slightly different market. I think you have a good idea in focusing on a specific market segment and concentrating on that.

I don't advise doing solely support for specialised software. But theres lots of small software companies out there, in particular across Ireland, with a small staff with who you might get some work from support their products in your area. It would be good to have some diverse revenue streams.
 
there is a reason why support companies dont look at this market, its a tough trade and sometimes can be hard to get paid, poor hours too. You'll get sick of working weekends fairly shortly, i'm in it support and tbh i wouldnt touch this market with a 20ft pole
 
I agree with all of the above - great idea but tough to make a profit. Also, if you're in Dublin you need to take the traffic into account if you have to go across the city from one call to another. How much could you do remotely? would it be worth having a motorbike for those days you're not lugging monitors around?

Would you consider having a pricing structure with different levels of support and response times (ie Silver, Gold, Platinum etc)?
 
There should be plenty of demand for services for small businesses (under 10 employees) - but be careful how you structure your services.

Tbh, I would avoid offering callout services to home office businesses - especially if you're not charging a callout fee. You will hear "but that only took you ten minutes!" every day of the week. Avoid working out of hours or weekends except perhaps for select clients who pay you serious money to do so on an occasional basis. Businesses with staff won't want to see you outside normal working hours anyway.
 
Well I have moped, so thats why I was thinking about this sort of thing in
Dublin.. If something had to be moved and it was bigger than I could carry
on it I'd use a courier or collect it outside of hours..

Remote access is something I am looking at, especially with server based issues where working from desk at home would be the idea scenario.

The reason I was mentioning outside of hours work was that if Im gonna
build this up I'll have to start doing it part time during the evenings and
weekends as I'm currently in full time employment.

I do this anyway with a small number of clients but more on a informal
basis and looking to expand on it. I wouldnt be doing it on my own, I was
chatting with a mate who was thinking of doing the same and between
the 2 of us, we have a base of about 30 clients to start off with.

I agree that a defined pricing structure is required, as for no call out fee,
well a miniumum of 1 or 2 hour rate is an option, stops people going on
about something only taking 10 mins. A call out fee is still an option too,
but it would be small enough not to frighten prospective customers off.

I.C
 
Irishchappie said:
I'll have to start doing it part time during the evenings and weekends as I'm currently in full time employment.
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I think you'll find it impossible to sustain a decent level of service to business customers if you're only available in the evenings & weekends.

Irishchappie said:
as for no call out fee, well a miniumum of 1 or 2 hour rate is an option,
Click to expand...
Sounds like a callout fee under another name...
 
ubiquitous said:
I think you'll find it impossible to sustain a decent level of service to business customers if you're only available in the evenings & weekends.
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Its only something to start with, if things do pick up then I'll take the plunge and go at it full time.

Funnily enough a lot of businesses I deal with at the moment prefer me to
be available outside of hours as do home based clients as they tend to be
out of the house during office hours working.

ubiquitous said:
Sounds like a callout fee under another name...
Click to expand...

Well its to stop the 10 minute calls as someone said earlier and a lot of
companies do charge a call out fee and a minimum time on site.

A prime example being a small insurance broker a friend of mine works for
called out an engineer from a local reseller to sort a PC issue they were
having, they were charged €150 call out fee and a minimum 1 hour on site
at €100 per hour. The total cost of €350 (Call out fee + 2 hours labour) plus
VAT was fairly substantial when you consider that you could have bought a
similar spec PC for €700 ex VAT.

To do this out of hours, which would have suited them better as it meant
that the person using the PC was away from their PC for the time the
engineer on site, would have cost them an additional out of hours cost.

Now take out the initial call out fee (€150) and the option of out of hours
support, it makes what I'm considering offering a much more attractive option for a small business even if I did charge the €100 a hour.

Its all in the planning stages anyway, so just seeing what peoples opinions are and trying to get some ideas together :)
 
Yeah the first thing will be to determine what exactly is the minimum I can comfortably live on, then estimate overheads and expenses etc..

I intend on doing up a complete business plan etc.. not jumping into this one unless my eyes are wide open..
 
Irishchappie said:
Its only something to start with, if things do pick up then I'll take the plunge and go at it full time.
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That's not a bad strategy. By doing this you have nothing whatsoever to lose in the early stages, and by the time you decide to take the plunge and go full-time, you will know the business inside out.


Irishchappie said:
A prime example being a small insurance broker a friend of mine works for
called out an engineer from a local reseller to sort a PC issue they were
having, they were charged €150 call out fee and a minimum 1 hour on site
at €100 per hour. The total cost of €350 (Call out fee + 2 hours labour) plus
VAT was fairly substantial when you consider that you could have bought a
similar spec PC for €700 ex VAT.

To do this out of hours, which would have suited them better as it meant
that the person using the PC was away from their PC for the time the
engineer on site, would have cost them an additional out of hours cost.

Now take out the initial call out fee (€150) and the option of out of hours
support, it makes what I'm considering offering a much more attractive option for a small business even if I did charge the €100 a hour.
Click to expand...

I see now what you mean.

Best of luck with it :)
 
How much are you charging your existing clients? - would they be happy with €100/hour?

One in particluar was setting up a small business and had 4 staff including himself.. they were quoted obscene amounts of money when looking to buy computers, a server, printers etc.. He asked me to help, purely because he didnt know anything about computers.
Click to expand...
How much did you charge this person?
 
leghorn said:
How much are you charging your existing clients? - would they be happy with €100/hour?
Click to expand...

It depends on the job I'm doing at the time.. so for basic stuff like virus removal, PC troubleshooting or upgrading the prices are nowhere near this. However if the job entails server config, backup restores etc, then the prices is a little higher. But this is what the other company were charging, not what I charge.

leghorn said:
How much did you charge this person?
Click to expand...

This job went on for a few weeks so in the end I just gave them a detailed worksheet of the various tasks involved and time taken then a set hourly rate at the end (they knew the rate before hand), everything from ordering equipment, installation, overseeing various other jobs including telecoms installation etc and basic management of everything from start to finish, and they were happy to pay the cost as I had saved them a packet initially.

Originally this started as an informal chat with the MD of the company as a favour to a friend who was working with them. Then after this, the MD decided he wanted me to help them out and it went from there. Now I even sort his home office and some of his friends ones too.. :)
 
I'm in the job working for an SME. Good advice above - do not do it for less than its worth - and you must make a profit. Doing it t break even is pointless. By break even I also include beingable to pay yourself a wage. The issues you will face are how you support customers as a one man band in the event of you being unavailable. I'm also quite surprised that there are many <10 business with no support contracts in place where IT well being is core to company progress. Good Luck - it is hard but if you break through and build your business you will enjoy.
 
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