How to Quit Your Job and Start a Computer Business – Book Review

Matthew Rodela from “Your Friendly Neighbourhood Computer Guy” has recently come out with an ebook called “How to Quit Your Job and Start a Computer Business“.
As you can tell from the title, it’s about making the jump from working for someone else to starting your own computer business.

“Taking the jump” from full-time employment to self-employment is not something one should ever take lightly, it’s a huge undertaking and the aim of this book is to help guide you through it.
Late last year I managed to get a copy of the book off Matt and have been reading through it over the holiday break. I have to say it is quite impressive. Read on for the full review.

It starts off by telling you to ask yourself why you want to start your own business to make sure it’s for the right reasons. Next, it helps you determine whether you have what it takes to be a computer consultant. This covers the three characteristics of technical skills, business savvy, interpersonal skills as well as being a marketer/salesperson.
In a brutally honest way, it lays out the “Pro’s and Con’s” of getting into this business so it lets you know what you can expect up front. Getting into this business is an amazing adventure but its not without its pitfalls and Matt lays them out very early in the book.

It talks about the value of traditional education, certification and sheer experience in the computer business. For example, Matt points out that most of your customers “don’t know an MCSA [certification] from a hole in the ground” and this is something I have always agreed on. It is a good chapter to let you know what experience you are bringing to the table when you start your business.

Once it has completed the “Ask yourself” chapters, the book gives you tips and advice on how to you get your first clients as well setting up your business legally and a large amount of marketing and streamlining. All while juggling your “day job” and your new business. Once you reach a point where your business makes enough money, the book includes information about quitting your job and how to break away civilly as well as covering the stuff that is important for Americans like the loss of employer supplied health insurance and replacing it as a freelancer.

Speaking of Americans, the tax, health insurance and retirement information is American targeted, talking about potentially cashing in your 401K’s and such. However, this U.S. specific information only takes up about 3-4 pages of the book in total so people from other countries shouldn’t feel like they are missing out on the bulk of the information. 95% of the book is general business advice and not country specific.

The book then pushes on to more advanced topics in the later chapters such as information about hiring, renting a storefront and general planning for the future.

Presentation of the book is great with illustrations every now and then to break it up. It also has all the things you would expect in a print book like an index, page numbers and so on. Obviously, the information in the book is the most important part but having it all nicely presented helps the reading experience.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen in this book is information about setting up your business to make it sellable, he does touch on it for a few lines but Matt himself says that this is outside the scope of the book, so I am not surprised it isn’t in it.

The book currently retails for $39 USD at the time of writing this review and includes PDF, ePub and MOBI versions of the book. At $39 I would be shocked if you felt you didn’t get your monies worth. Having said that, Matt offers a satisfaction guarantee on this product so while he is confident you’ll love this book, if for any reason it doesn’t meet your expectations he’ll happily refund your money. My point is here is that there is absolutely no risk to check it out.

Overall, I am impressed with the quality of this book and happy to recommend it to the Technibble readers who are looking to make the jump themselves. If you think this book is for you, I managed to get Technibble readers a sweet 20% off discount if you use the coupon code: TECHNIBBLE20

Note: Once you hit the buy now button on the site, it asks you to sign up to a “free subscription”. This is the system that allows you to login and re-download the product at any time should you lose it. It wont charge your credit card again beyond the initially paying for the product.