UK Home Repair Business Start-up

[Martyn]

Thanks for the suggestions interesting site there


Few more questions. I feel i could go ahead with transporting pc's on a motorbike. If someone doesn't trust me that's fine. Can't get them all (maybe one day).


1) What insurance will i need to cover the computer in transit e.g computer falls off the bike/accident with other vehicle. Is this courier insurance or public liability?

2) As i will be operating my workshop from home, do i need to register as a business? if so is sole trader best? I'm assuming i will have to pay tax on all work done aswell?

What Sassenach said for question 1. For question 2 you will need to speak to the taxman but will either need an accountant or do self assessment. Register the company as a sole trader to start with. Speak to the taxman about claiming business mileage which is 45p a mile for the first 10000 miles. Get a couple of decent books if you're doing it all yourself or get an accountant probably at around £250 - £350 per year.

 

[Rosco]

i started my business in the US when i was 22 now i am 25. Things are going good. I am still a mobile tech and have no real reason to get a store front. WOM has spread enough new people call regularly. I think onsite only is a mistake. Especially when you are just starting out.

About the fix no no pay.

I always charge. Most of the time they dont want it fixed because of the price compared to a cheap computer, which is fine, but my time is worth the money. I want to get paid for the work i do.

i wouldn't worry about a repair tracker until you have more business. It will be a better investment when you have more business.

Its a lot of work to get a business off the ground. Keep plugging away. good luck!

 

[CraiGDaniel]

Insurance - you will need to insure the bike for business use, be prepared for one hell of a shock especially when you tell them what you will be carrying.

You will also need Goods in Transit insurance, possibly with a clause which specifically allows high value target goods.

You will need to have business cover insurance on goods kept at your house and make sure that it has full cover for customer's property that is in your posession.

Finally, you will need Public Liability insurance to cover you anytime you are working outside of your home.

It is so refreshing to see someone who is willing to work for reduced rates and still want do everything necessary to operate as a proper business.

Judging by what I was paying as a courier who carried target goods, insurance for someone your age will probably be in the region of £60 - £90 per week (paid annually in advance).

Great information !!!

So to simplify it i will need this;

> Tell my current insurer i will be using the bike as a courier
> Good in Transit Insurance
> Public Liability Insurance
> Business Cover Insurance for Home

And that will basically cover me for anything that could happen whilst on the job?

 

[DCGPX]

Not wanting to hijack this thread but - How many have separate Goods in Transit insurance?

I've never thought of that one to be honest - Just Car Business Class 1 insurance, Public Liability and Home extension for Business use.

 

[MobileTechie]

Great information !!!

So to simplify it i will need this;

> Tell my current insurer i will be using the bike as a courier
> Good in Transit Insurance
> Public Liability Insurance
> Business Cover Insurance for Home

And that will basically cover me for anything that could happen whilst on the job?

Not quite....you'll need to tell your home buildings and contents insurers what you are doing: that is working from home with equipment and stock (not at all the same as merely working from home in a clerical sense). That will almost certainly invalidate your household insurances. So you will then need to find a specialist insurer willing to insure your house and contents under these circumstances. There are not many in the UK who will do so and they are more expensive than normal.

Many people THINK they are insured whilst doing this sort of job but they are often not. Obviously the results of getting it wrong could be pretty serious in that a fire could result in you losing everything you own.

 

[MobileTechie]

Not wanting to hijack this thread but - How many have separate Goods in Transit insurance?

I've never thought of that one to be honest - Just Car Business Class 1 insurance, Public Liability and Home extension for Business use.

No I don't. But I'm never carrying so much stuff that I couldn't replace it if I needed to. I never leave it unattended so it would only come into play in the result of a serious crash.

I only believe in getting insurance for things when the outcome would be too much to deal with - like household building insurance. Covering myself for a few hundred pounds worth of laptop or PC isn't really worth the premiums to me.

 

[joydivision]

You need a car or van. There is many jobs you can't do onsite, have you ever tried to remove a complex virus onsite? It can take several hours if not a day or so in extreme cases.

Jack of all trades is ok but you must be good at everything you intend to offer this is the main reason I tend to avoid servers. I prefer to be very good at fixing home market problems and specialise in that that said many of my home customers are self employed.

My car insurance includes goods in transit. We need to have business class car insurance anyway and that often includes it.

 

[DCGPX]

+1 on a car/van

Obviously your not in a position to get one yet but it needs to be a priority.

I've ridden bikes since I was 16 and I'm now...older! I've carried lots of wierd things and even without knowing your bike, it alters characteristic dramatically, especially weight of a full size desktop/tower.

Your insurance is going to be your biggest cost by far, possibly prohibitly so. You might want to consider channelling this money into a quickpass course and buy a cheap runabout to get you going.

Look at remote support as a supplement to boost funds- you might as an option do a first fix to get PC online, then sell it as a cheaper option to then complete remotely so you limit times you have to take PC away.

Personally I would have serious reservations on letting my PC go on a bike, no matter how well fastened it looked, and I'm not biased as I've said I've had years on one.

You might have to think out of the box to see alternative options so you can build your client base as much as possible to begin with

 

[CraiGDaniel]

Cheers MT & DC.

I will hopefully be getting a driving licence in 6 months time with the terrirotial army.

Although my biggest concern is insurance, my lowest quote for a year is about 3.5k (£310 monthly) or something. That not far of the price of my house rent!

Completely unnafordable!


I'm starting to be put off the bike idea now but i really would like it to work, however i don't want to upset customer and ruin what could of been a good business

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

there is the potential to get nicked for carrying an unsafe load as well - just something to bear in mind

 

[Captain Spaulding]

Don't undercut your competition, this was one of the biggest mistakes I made when starting. When I realised I wasn't charging enough it was hard to increase the price (telling existing customers) and I was getting customers come to me via recommendations expecting to pay the same low price I originally charged.

I found out service is far more important to customers than a cheaper option.

 

[Rosco]

Don't undercut your competition, this was one of the biggest mistakes I made when starting. When I realised I wasn't charging enough it was hard to increase the price (telling existing customers) and I was getting customers come to me via recommendations expecting to pay the same low price I originally charged.

I found out service is far more important to customers than a cheaper option.

Great advice^^^^^^^ a good customer is always look for great service over cheap price. the people that come with cheap prices are not customers i rather not have anyway!

 

[CraiGDaniel]

I've decided i will match/slightly inflate the prices over the competitors, mainly due to the advice here and some further research.

I aim to offer the best service in the area and as long as i can do that, as said i will have no problem and make more money.


With the transport the PC's on a bike issue. I'm going to atleast give it a try. I will form some sort of legal document that i will get the customer to sign that states something like "If your computer is damaged in transit under my care i will replace all damaged components and carry out the initial quote for free."

Surely that's viable enough and will eliminate the few doubters i will probably have.

I mean if i turn up to a home, load the pc into my secure pc carry bag and then walk out with it and hop on my bike - i don't think many people will say anything.

 

[sassenach]

I will form some sort of legal document that i will get the customer to sign that states something like "If your computer is damaged in transit under my care i will replace all damaged components and carry out the initial quote for free."

You are liable for any damage incurred to a customer's property from the time you accept posession until the time the customer signs to say they have received it back in satisfactory condition.

What happens if your carry case is not big enough for the PC you are collecting? Gamers may well have liquid/gas cooling radiators bolted on to the case, pipework running externally and fans and guards in places you wouldn't even think of putting them normally. These rigs may well weigh in excess of 30k and be very unbalanced as well.

I love your enthusiasm, but you really will need to cover your backside really well on this. Maybe you need to come up with a way to market the ultra quick arrival on site time that a bike will allow and do 2 visits per repair if you need to get parts. As long as you are really confident you can diagnose exactly what is needed and complete the repair whilst on site, you will have a different USP to your competition.

 

[CraiGDaniel]

You are liable for any damage incurred to a customer's property from the time you accept posession until the time the customer signs to say they have received it back in satisfactory condition.

What happens if your carry case is not big enough for the PC you are collecting? Gamers may well have liquid/gas cooling radiators bolted on to the case, pipework running externally and fans and guards in places you wouldn't even think of putting them normally. These rigs may well weigh in excess of 30k and be very unbalanced as well.

I love your enthusiasm, but you really will need to cover your backside really well on this. Maybe you need to come up with a way to market the ultra quick arrival on site time that a bike will allow and do 2 visits per repair if you need to get parts. As long as you are really confident you can diagnose exactly what is needed and complete the repair whilst on site, you will have a different USP to your competition.

Good idea. The good thing about the bike is the petrol will cost me half of a car, so i could afford the 2 visits and get to the location quickly. Could be a main selling point for my services, "Fastest repair around, all done in home, no taking your equipment away!".

Just chucking ideas around really as i will make this work somehow. For virus removal that could take a few hours i could always remove the HDD and sort that out in my home workshop and return it the same day etc. Like a fast dispatch courier or something.

 

[JonnyRT]

Thats a good idea of Sassenach's to market the ultra quick arrival time. I don't think people would mind two trips at all, I think it could help build your relationship with your customer as you'll have twice the opportunity to arrive on time, look smart etc - shows you are consistent and hopefully will lead to repeat business.

 

[Martyn]

I'm not trying to burst your bubble but in the real world you will see things differently. Kids running around, dogs trying to go for you, places you don't want to stay in for hours etc. There are many reasons why you would want to bring the whole computer away not just the hard drive.

 

[CraiGDaniel]

I understand but having a car is just not an option for me. I've tried covering the idea of taking it home on the bike which i know i'm capable of but not sure it will go down well and taking the advice on here that it will be a lot of hassle.

After seeing a couple of companys in london doing well with just scooters it's apparent theres a business there.

I'm very good with people so it shouldn't be an issue. If something is going to be lengthy (1 1/2 hrs+) i can always pull the specific component and work on it at home (i.e HDD, lengthy virus removals)

Thoughts?

 

[MobileTechie]

The thing is with doing onsite only is that you'd need to pre-qualify. You don't want to go to "dead laptop" calls if you're not going to take them away because most of those need opening up, soldering, sending away for reballing etc.

You could cover "dead desktop" calls but you'd need to take a spare power supply. You'd still fail on the mobo ones because you can't carry all the different ones around, especially on a bike. PCs come in various form factors so if you turn up to say an HP microtower, your PSU won't fit. So careful pre-qualification is essential. If you limit yourself to s/w issues, virus, networking and so on then most jobs can be done onsite. I've even fitted fans to laptop onsite. I'd happily take my soldering kit out if they want me to. I much prefer to be onsite than in my workshop because I hate travel time.

What I don't quite get is how you can be so confidant of being able to do everything onsite when you've not been doing the job for a long time. 90% of the job is experience. Being able to diagnose and fix problems comes with having seen them before multiple times. What I can fix onsite now is many times what I could when I started because I learned how to fix the problems and handle the people. That doesn't happen overnight.

Personally I think that if you really can safely carry a large desktop locked in a pannier then you're OK to cover onsite and workshop repairs (I don't know how your bike is mind). You could brand that pannier and maybe wear a branded bid over your jacket as well as branded polo underneath to present a professional image for both scenarios.

Again you'd need to pre-qualify the size of the computer to rule the odd extra large computer.

 

[CraiGDaniel]

The thing is with doing onsite only is that you'd need to pre-qualify. You don't want to go to "dead laptop" calls if you're not going to take them away because most of those need opening up, soldering, sending away for reballing etc.

You could cover "dead desktop" calls but you'd need to take a spare power supply. You'd still fail on the mobo ones because you can't carry all the different ones around, especially on a bike. PCs come in various form factors so if you turn up to say an HP microtower, your PSU won't fit. So careful pre-qualification is essential. If you limit yourself to s/w issues, virus, networking and so on then most jobs can be done onsite. I've even fitted fans to laptop onsite. I'd happily take my soldering kit out if they want me to. I much prefer to be onsite than in my workshop because I hate travel time.

What I don't quite get is how you can be so confidant of being able to do everything onsite when you've not been doing the job for a long time. 90% of the job is experience. Being able to diagnose and fix problems comes with having seen them before multiple times. What I can fix onsite now is many times what I could when I started because I learned how to fix the problems and handle the people. That doesn't happen overnight.

Personally I think that if you really can safely carry a large desktop locked in a pannier then you're OK to cover onsite and workshop repairs (I don't know how your bike is mind). You could brand that pannier and maybe wear a branded bid over your jacket as well as branded polo underneath to present a professional image for both scenarios.

Again you'd need to pre-qualify the size of the computer to rule the odd extra large computer.

I'm not confident i can. I mean most of the stuff i learnt was from building high end gaming pc's a few years ago when that's all i did, game.

Though as a novice lots of problems arise with me putting things together and eventually started working out things wrong with BIOS settings, bottlenecked hardware and the like. I have plenty of self-taught hands on experience.

And the free work i do for friends and family at the moment has given me some field experience. Havn't had to take their computer's home before but have spent 2-3 hours at places.

Comptia a+ will be getting taken in the next month or so, studying for that now, i'm working on it. Ideally i don't want to start up until i have that a+ cert.

Is it plausable to say that any take home jobs will involve something to do with software? I.e the only really long job that i would be better off taking home for would be deep virus removal or something like that. But if that's the case i can just take the HDD and work on that and get it back to them.

Thanks again