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Just trying to get a idea of what people think.

I’ve been made redundant and on the 19th of April i am free to work again (30 day holiday /planning time). I’ve been given a settlement that would cover me for around 4-5 months.

I’ve always wanted to start up on my own but never had the money to do it. I have experience in IT consultancy from a previous role, where I did about 5 years of it. But never had to go out and get my own clients…

My concerns are:

My age - I’m 27 would people put their trust in me

Money - obviously i wouldnt expect to turn over money as soon as I started but i would need to be up and running within 5 months at most.

Clients - I have a friend who can design a HTML email that I was going to send out to local companies to draw up some business. Bar that - cold calling wouldn’t suit me at all.

I would appreciate some input from people have been there before and what their experiences were.

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When I ran my own business quite a lot of it came from word of mouth. I had some flyers produced and posted them through office doors and homes in the evenings offering computer repairs / upgrades / virus removal etc. Once I had a few clients they spoke to their friends and so on.

It was hard at first but I successfully ran my own IT solutions firm for over 10 years.

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Good luck whatever happens!.. Wish I had the balls to start up on my own…

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Make sure you fully research your customer base. Make sure you know how much potential there actually is. Be honest with yourself - don’t lie to yourself and say that it’ll be all right, when the figures don’t say so. Get quotes from competitors to see what sort of money you can charge. Find out where your service could be different from the rest - as you probably won’t be able to compete on price alone.

If you think there is enough potential out there, then go for it, but don’t expect to be making a profit within 4-5 months. You will probably have to live off savings for a little longer and strip down your lifestyle to save money where you can.

Also expect to work long days - it’ll be a while before you have the luxury to choose which jobs you don’t want to do. You’ll start by taking all the work you can get to pay your bills - whether you enjoy those jobs or not.

However, all the people I know who have gone freelance/self-employed/consultancy have never looked back and would never go back to being employed.

It’s going to be hard - don’t kid yourself - but if it works out, it’ll be rewarding also.

I wish you the best of luck… whatever you decide to do in the end.

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If this can be of some help, a discussion of a month ago, with insights on the subject: Starting as a IT reseller is impossible.

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I’ve run a one man shop for about 18 years. I did work for a few companies prior to that, so I had contacts in the field. I’ll just share a short story about a conversation I had with another consultant. We had both worked for the same company before we went out on our own. After I had left, but before he did, there was another tech, I’ll call him Jim, that also had left and went on his own. I was talking to my friend and had mentioned that I seemed to run in to this Jim all the time. He had really seemed to pick up a lot of accounts since he had left our previous company. My friend says, yeah, you know what he did? He printed some business cards and stopped at every small business in town (pop. 100k) and dropped one off. Now, I’m not talking some slick salesman here, he’s a little on the nerdy side, but his business plan is proof that it is a numbers game. If doing the same is not for you, I think you’re going to have a rough go of it, or you’re going to end up working on home computers. What you’re probably going to want to target are the companies that the MSP’s are not all that interested in, 10 to 50 computers, server based. Big enough to need some help, but not big enough to justify a full time employee. Become a partner for a good hosted Exchange provider. It’s unbelievable how many companies are still jacking around with POP email. Put that on your business card. This maybe something that no one else has brought up to them before. I could go on and on, but a little short on time.

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Can you do it? Absolutely.

Should you do it? It depends.

You’ve done 5 years of consultancy, so I don’t think there is a question of can you do the job.

How are you with asking for money? Does this intimidate you?

Is 30 days of planning time enough for something this big?

HTML email templates are not how you win new clients, at all. Think of personalised emails, snail mail, leaflets, even google adverts but sending template HTML graphical emails won’t work. The world is nosier than ever, you have to really think about how you’ll gain new clients carefully.

As for age, youth is no guarantee of innovation, age is no guarantee of efficiency.

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There have been a few threads on here about starting your own business and rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I’d share one of those threads that had a lot of good comments…

In this thread, Bryce had taken some time to provide good advice worth reading.

@brycekatz

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local newspaper advertising and, weirdly enough, a sign on my car were the 2 biggest customer draws for me after word of mouth.

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Research the different types of businesses (LLC, Incorporation, etc.) first thing and decide which one is best for you. Each one has it’s pros and cons.

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I especially recommend you read this comment:

and the one immediately below it. :wink:

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Also, get to know Ashley Ambrige and The Middle Finger Project . Ash will tell you how to *crush the [redacted]* out of running a business.

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Oh! That’s where I left that post.

bookmarks for future reference

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Running your own business is less about your tech skills and more about all the other skills. As other have noted, tech wise you’ll be doing the same things over and over. It’s your soft skills that will make or break you. Can you be nice to a tough customer, can you be tough with a nice customer who isn’t paying the bill?

Can you keep track of your sales and expenses? How are you at scheduling?

On your own you are it, you are the accounting department, the receptionist, building management, Help Desk, server team, marketing team… It’s all doable, but decide what you are selling yourself as and stick to it. Then do what you need to keep yourself organized.

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If you have some free time between driving between places or down time like that I would defiantly head over to Youtube and watch/listen to some of Eli The Computer Guys videos. He teaches tech subjects but he also has a lot of videos on how to run a business. He had one like what you are wanting to start for years before the recession. Also he does offer face to face meetings so you could ask him questions and advice.

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Lots of good comments that echo my own experience.

When going into business for yourself to do ‘X’, you’ll find out that doing ‘X’ is only a piece (sometimes a small piece) of the business. The rest is the stuff that EVERY business has to do - all the “administrivia” (billing, invoicing, taxes, accounting, etc.), plus drumming up new business, keep old customers, etc.

As for age? Don’t worry about that - confidence comes in all ages. I was younger than you when I quit a job and struck out on my own in the late 1980s. I did it for about five years, then ended up getting hired by my biggest customer.

If you’re young, single, and rent (not own) a home, you’re in the best shape to try working for yourself. What’s the worst that can happen? If everything goes to pot you end up getting a job working at Best Buy?

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Indeed. I was 19 or 20 when I took my first non-training contract. (Up to that point I’d made a lot of money offering individualized training.)

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Holy moly. What a great site!

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I did the same thing a long time ago and the lesson that I learned was this. While, I was/still am very good at the tech part of the job; I was not and I am still not a good salesman. When running your own business you probably should be a better salesman than whatever skill you are actually trying to sell. Also, be prepared for the fact that some people are jerks and you will not get paid for services rendered. You will also get people that are slow to pay.

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I’ve had similar thoughts on consulting, my major concern has been with the rise of remote administration (MSPs mainly) and the seemingly decline in small mom and pop computer stores, is the time for the small time consultant come and gone…

Either way I wish you luck, I wish I had something more to offer you than the above concern/question for you to ask yourself. If your buddy can make that page, it may help you branch out from local to maybe regional, assuming you can do remote administration somehow.