New Small Business with One Employee

ImDave

Folks,

Just wanted to draw on some of your experience and insights whilst I think about this out loud.

Basically I have a small commercial premises in a good industrial estate in Dublin, for which I have the only been using for storage and an administrative office for my work (IT Consultant). As the rent is very low and costs are fixed, I have been thinking of opportunities to utilise the space as for a small business.

Despite their being a plethora of people doing it, one idea I had was to setup an iPhone/Smartphone repair centre, also looking after laptop/computer re-builds and support. The reason I am thinking of this is that the business could potentially be staffed by one person working five days a week or so. The margins on such repair work is pretty good if sourcing parts/stock from the right place. As my costs are low, a wage for someone working ~40 hours per week would be the primary overhead.

This is a very crowded market place with loads of people coming and going, but I have a background (academically more so than practically admittedly) in marketing, and figure with some cleaver branding and a decent advertising strategy with good WOM it might be possible to turn over a small gross profit per month.

I have reservations however (the main one being my time is gone Monday-Friday during the day time working on customer sites, so my involvement would be evening and weekend rather than a day-to-day presence), but would appreciate the input from others who can spot similar flaws.

Thanks,

Dave

lucky john

Its probably going to take a while for your advertising to draw in enough work for you to turn a profit. So to reduced your risk of having to pay a wage duering that time you could offer someone the opportunity to set up as a self employed operator in your unit. In stead of just charging rent you could share the profits. That way you have an incentive to draw in business and this person has a stake in doing a good job and growing the business. He wins with a zero setup cost business and you win with a low cost and for the most part a passive income with potential to grow.

Peterdalkey

A retail pitch for such a consumer focussed service trading out of an industrial location is always going to be extremely tough, no footfall.
It would seem that you would need to find a hugely skilled person in ALL types of phones and computers to man it.
With only one person on site, they will have to do all the work with callers, phones and the actual repairs. What about cover for breaks, holidays, sick days etc
It is already pretty easy to find this type of service locally in my opinion and all the retailers seem to offer a repair service too ( on or off site).
Warranty costs?

Of course you could run it as an online/,mail order business , but I expect it would be a slow burn and then you have delivery charges in/out, insurance/postal damage/theft issues etc!!


You have a nice resource availalble and paid for, but I would think you might be better with a more niche type operation. It is clearly a good move to put it to work, you just need to find a suitable opportunity!

cheers

Peter