Any like minded Redundant IT professionals looking at working for themselves?

M@21

Hi Folks,
The jobs market is very slow so I have been looking into providing IT services to the SME market.
Now I know there are enough established companies out there already so it's not going to be an easy job for an individual.
What I was thinking might be a more worthwhile endeavor would be to join up with other like minded individuals that would consider working at setting up such a service.
I am located in North Wicklow, so would be targeting the South / West Dublin region.
I know its a very vague idea but if anyone is interested in discussing this further please reply.
Thanks.

M@21
Made redundant but not feeling redundant.

swanvill

Hi [EMAIL="M@21"]M@21[/EMAIL],

I like your signature and best of luck with your business venture.

PM if you need any tax / accounting help.

Swanvill.

Milkey Bar Kid

I work for CPL . seems to be a few jobs here

an_other

I am starting something similar in the midlands.
The problem I have at the moment is I have an advertising budget of €0.
And the mortgage is due.

JasperKat

love your atitude but my honest opinion on your idea is 'don't bother', why do I say that? because for the following reasons...
- there are loads of others trying a similar thing & all chasing a very small area - south dublin & wicklow in particular are nearly over-run with guys doing it 'mobile joes' theyre nicknamed!
- the expenses & time involved - who would dish out the work?
- I tried to do a similar thing - not in it - but joining up with some others in similar arena to offer a service to home people & thought it was going grand (did for a while) but then it got very messy

just my 2c worth

Jasper

M@21

JasperKat wrote: »

love your atitude but my honest opinion on your idea is 'don't bother', why do I say that? because for the following reasons...
- there are loads of others trying a similar thing & all chasing a very small area - south dublin & wicklow in particular are nearly over-run with guys doing it 'mobile joes' theyre nicknamed!
- the expenses & time involved - who would dish out the work?
- I tried to do a similar thing - not in it - but joining up with some others in similar arena to offer a service to home people & thought it was going grand (did for a while) but then it got very messy

just my 2c worth

Jasper

Thanks for that.
Your 2c might just save me more than that in hassle.

onedmc

JasperKat wrote: »

love your atitude but my honest opinion on your idea is 'don't bother', why do I say that? because for the following reasons...
- there are loads of others trying a similar thing & all chasing a very small area - south dublin & wicklow in particular are nearly over-run with guys doing it 'mobile joes' theyre nicknamed!
- the expenses & time involved - who would dish out the work?
- I tried to do a similar thing - not in it - but joining up with some others in similar arena to offer a service to home people & thought it was going grand (did for a while) but then it got very messy

just my 2c worth

Jasper

Maybe I missed the point but I think that this guy wants to offer an IT service so SME.

If so then there is plenty of oppertunity for the right type of offering. Small business needs to cut cost and this often means reducing staff and increasing productivity. IT can do this and the right person can show them how.

Offering services to homes is completly different, you cant get a long term contract with recurring revenue and you cant get refferal fees for geting someone else in to do other IT work (say website).

The only point that I can contribute here is to say that you just have to do it yourself, you cant rely on other to bring in the business, so you need to be able to do sales and keep at.

Thats my E13.00 worth (E13 per 5 mins == E1250/day)

onedmc

M@21

Thanks onedmc!

My ideal situation would be for 3 or 4 like minded IT professionals (including myself), to join together and offer support to the SME market.
I would not be targeting the home user market as it is not reliable enough to provide for more than 1 person.
IMO this type of service would be more professional looking than a one man show setup.

How would you consider a one man show offering IT services to your company?

I keep on thinking clients want security and reliability from any provider which I don't think is a strong selling point of a one man show.

Thoughts anyone?

CaraFawn

M@21 wrote: »

Thanks onedmc!

My ideal situation would be for 3 or 4 like minded IT professionals (including myself), to join together and offer support to the SME market.
I would not be targeting the home user market as it is not reliable enough to provide for more than 1 person.
IMO this type of service would be more professional looking than a one man show setup.

How would you consider a one man show offering IT services to your company?

I keep on thinking clients want security and reliability from any provider which I don't think is a strong selling point of a one man show.

Thoughts anyone?

Do you have a sales guy?
As pointed out there is still opportunities I totally agree, but without a strong sales man you are going nowhere.

an_other

A sales guy would be a great idea.
I can fix a computer but can't sell myself for s*%t.

WillyWonka

Doing something similar myself. Getting set up as a sole trader at the moment at least that way you're a business not and individual.

If you walk in to an office and have a company name, business card and a nice shirt and tie you might be able to get their attention.
They don't know if you're sales person or just a bloke trying to get work.

If you get that far and you can offer them a good service at reduced cost then that's a start I suppose.

Problem is will you make more money than being on the dole and doing this work on the side? That's what I'm looking into at the moment...

NullZer0

hmmm.. I've found the market to be reasonable to be honest.
I didn't expect this at all!

I've had a few offers in the past two two and about 18 interviews in the past 5 weeks.
I'm still in a job at the moment though but I'll be finishing up May 1st.

I suppose I'd chance anything really but haven't had the need to yet.

an_other

I find it very hard just cold calling or walking into a place to sell myself.
I always think that if it was the other way around I wouldn't be impressed by someone annoying me at work.

dooardbhoy

I have a senior sales and marketing background but having been in a business closely alligned to the motor trade which is on its knees I am looking at other opportunities and sectors.

M@21

WillyWonka wrote: »

Doing something similar myself. Getting set up as a sole trader at the moment at least that way you're a business not and individual.

If you walk in to an office and have a company name, business card and a nice shirt and tie you might be able to get their attention.
They don't know if you're sales person or just a bloke trying to get work.

If you get that far and you can offer them a good service at reduced cost then that's a start I suppose.

Problem is will you make more money than being on the dole and doing this work on the side? That's what I'm looking into at the moment...

I am trying to work that out myself - will the jump into the self employed arena be enough as a sole income.

iRock wrote: »

hmmm.. I've found the market to be reasonable to be honest.
I didn't expect this at all!

I've had a few offers in the past two two and about 18 interviews in the past 5 weeks.
I'm still in a job at the moment though but I'll be finishing up May 1st.

I suppose I'd chance anything really but haven't had the need to yet.

18 interviews - thats impressive, are they a mix of agencies and direct from the companies?
Any agency I have gone through have been quiet in the last while, even with me hounding them.

an_other wrote: »

I find it very hard just cold calling or walking into a place to sell myself.
I always think that if it was the other way around I wouldn't be impressed by someone annoying me at work.

I have been building up my business network on linked in, so hopefully I won't be doing too much cold calling if anything comes to fruition.

NullZer0

M@21 wrote: »

18 interviews - thats impressive, are they a mix of agencies and direct from the companies?
Any agency I have gone through have been quiet in the last while, even with me hounding them.

No really though! Especially when you consider the fact that I haven't secured anything yet

No, these are employers (with the exception of three). I generally try not to apply to agencies. I find the best way is networking with people.

conolan

A suitable network of individuals might be the thing to do. Appear as one business with branches. Each person responsible for own sales, operations. Use combined google adwords plus press release (new irish IT network creates jobs) and share costs of website, sales materials. Could interest a sales person to work on behalf of the network doing phone cold calls, commission based.
I have a redundant business name that would be useful. My interest would be in the website side of things. PM for details.
(if anyone things this is an unashamed plug, elt me know and I'll edit)

an_other

A National network of independant techies is an interesting idea. Everyone is responsibile for themselves but we combine for advertsing and larger projects that are more than a one man job.

"My Company name" a member of "group name"

A single website & advertising campaign that acts as a directory to all.

mastermind2005

Thats been done already.... OP have you even an idea of what area you want to get involved in....

thecornerboy

There are loads of people doing this but many are incompetent and charge for it, from experience. Best of luck but I'd work for yourself, by yourself. Give it 6 months.

FusionNet

Hi there,

I was in a similar situation. Im now coming up to year two and all is good. I teamed up with another IT company locally and now we have twice the database to pool from and we go into potential contract meetings together as one brand. It has been working really well as we both specialise and neither of us cross speciality paths!!

We both do limited advertising, and are small operations. The key to riding this out is keep things cheap. It you can get finance for a brand new van then dont but second hand and pay it off quick. If you can afford to rent an office then dont run it from the spare room..

Ive been in IT in some shape or form for over ten years. My clients dont care what I drive, where my address is. All they worry about is I turn up when I say, do what I say and charge a fair price. Saying that dont under price yourself. If your good or great at what you do charge for it. Im one of the only guys in my county that "can" actually do what I say in my business!!! Yes there are a lot of guys that do networks etc but they dont do them right.. So on that basis I can charge well for what I do..

arrange meetings with local companies and try and change them over to you. The chances are unless you have a really good competitor Ive found a lot of companies are not happy with their IT provider, usually cause of price or personality..

If you want to ask any questions etc please feel free to PM..

Cheers,

byrne0f56789

It's all about cost cutting for SMEs right now. If you can help them do that then you can make it work. The current situation is forcing a lot of SMEs to make changes to their operations. So you may find that some are more open to IT investment than they were before. Right now, businesses prefer to contract out work instead of having full-time employees. There might be opportunities in that field.

You should be open minded about the services you offer.

I think you should take the ball and run with it yourself. Getting involved in business arrangements with others that you don't know very well is playing with fire.