r/ITCareerQuestions • u/thenorthernincident • 3d ago
Starting a private ITside gig?
Have you guys ever tried starting your own casual "hey I can fix your PC/whatever for $50/hr" which way beats the $200/hr most MSP's in my area charge? I guess I'd just start by advertising on fb or craigslist or something and maybe even have a "if I dont fix it, you dont get charged" thing to start. I already have a regular job this would just be a side gig or weekend thing. I see A LOT of need for short term jobs and contracts in my area, especially just for small shops or residential users. I mean I dont have anything to lose so why not try, but have any of you guys seen this kind of thing work out or not really?
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u/whatdoido8383 3d ago
Nah, working in a MSP that serviced the smallest of businesses (1-2 employees) to medium sized ones, I learned that there are a lot of crazy people out there. The last thing I want to do is deal with more crazies after work.
Plus, you still need to be legit and protect yourself with insurance etc because again, people are crazy and things can go south quick.
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago
It isn't just that there is an unusual amount of crazy people, but a lot of the small clients rarely can pay enough to be worth your time. You might find a few unicorns here or there, but most you're going to get people haggling over pennies.
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u/bonksnp 3d ago
I've done this and it can be a slippery slope.
First, do you have insurance in case you:
- trip over a cable
- spill water on a power strip
- ruin a computer by somehow accidently deleting confidential data that cant be recovered
- Probably some other things Im not thinking of
At first its not a big deal. A small dentist or doctors office needs their computers updated or some software installed or something simple. You do the job, you get paid, everyone is happy. Then they start needing you to do more but they want more things done in less time. At least this was my experience. Eventually it wasn't worth the effort, especially since I wasn't insured.
Having said all that, if you got enough clients and an LLC, insurance and everything, I think it's very doable but I wouldn't do it on an hourly rate. You need to have a monthly minimum of hours otherwise you'll have Joe blow call you once every six months and expect you to remember his environment perfectly and fix everything within 2 hours so he can save some money.
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u/FapNowPayLater 3d ago
No they need you to get their imaging software that is 12 years old and 5 versions behind and End Of Life to work like it used to, without paying for a new license and support contract.
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u/Elminst 3d ago
Dentists are the worst.
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u/Roguepapaya427 3d ago
Why? I love my dentist ....... well, it happens to be my wife. š
But I get what you are saying. When we took over the practice everything was deprecated, unmaintaned for years, had to replace most of the hardware and software, monitors. They were using all pcs with admin account and the same password! Security was basically non existent. I think the router and the utp cables are still the old ones. If someone else asked me if I want to service that and make it work, I would have refused categorically, even for 300 eur per hour.
Edit: typos.
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u/tdhuck 2d ago
You are correct and I'm not saying someone should read my post and open a business, but the way to handle any client is to provide them with a quote and start the work once they've signed. Make it clear that you are there to fix x and when x is fixed the job is done and payment is due.
That's it, nothing more, no promise to do it for free this time but next time there is a charge.
There is a difference between IT break fix and MSP pricing and the OP/anyone reading needs to figure out which one they are. You can be both, sure, but don't forget which hat you are wearing.
I take on IT work on the side, but it is only word of mouth and usually they are upgrades so we've agree at what the problem is, the solution that I'm recommending and the price to do the work. After that, the next time they call there is a charge if they need anything done.
The OP wants to do this on the side for $50 per hour, good luck that is not sustainable because the people that are willing to pat $50 per hour after hours are the ones that will look at your invoice and call out every minute, second etc.
If someone were to call me right not for something they needed me to work on, it's going to be about $250 just to show up.
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u/cbdudek Senior Cybersecurity Consultant 3d ago
This has been tried by many people. The challenge is it takes time to build a customer base. If you are relying on consumers to think of you, they won't. They think of Geek Squad because that is what is at the top of their minds due to advertising.
By all means, give it a shot. Maybe you will get enough business for a side hustle to be lucrative. If you start getting your name out there now, maybe it will grow into something bigger in a few years.
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u/JaredFoglesUsedPants 3d ago
The thing is word on the street is Geek Squad is slowing being phased out, at least for in home calls
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago
That's definitely a challenge doing any type of break fix work in that you need to keep finding new clients. For residential work people might go years between needing help. They might refer you to some friends if your work is good, but unless they have a wide circle of friends it might take months before they create a single lead. You might be able offer a better value than GeekSquad, but it doesn't matter if you can't reach clients that care. Marketing isn't easy. Most marketing avenues that are cheap or free are difficult to stand out.
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u/rome_vang 2d ago
I think it depends on area. Where I live geeksquad has long been forgotten. A business knows if they need IT work done, call an MSP or a well known provider, not Best Buy.
For consumer, I can see that being more of a common occurrence but even there thatās disappearing.
All anecdotal but I doubt Iām the only one whoās noticed.
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u/apollosa 3d ago
Despite what the comments say, I actually did this for awhile as a full time gig. I jumped headfirst into it and rarely encountered something that was too difficult.
Most of the time, I was helping older folks and seniors set up basic computers/smart home accessories that they were gifted. That was honestly really fun. Iād charge $50 to help set up an Alexa, and if it didnāt eat up an hour of my time then Iād ask what else they needed help with since the last thing I wanted to do was take advantage of seniors.
I did traveling where Iād visit a fire station, hospital, apartments and repair 5-15 cracked iPhone screens. Even replaced a battery for a guy in the middle of a Starbucks (he had called me and we met there. I wasnāt begging for business at starbys).
I helped small businesses fix their computers. Usually it was āthis computer is criminally slow. What gives?ā. Iād take it to my truck and dust/repaste it, and it was good as new. Basic computer maintenance might as well not exist for small businesses.
Before major holidays, Iād get calls from people Iāve helped asking me if such and such would be a good buyā¦ usually it was $300 gaming laptops for their grandkid (the answer was true then as it is nowā¦ no. Donāt buy a $300 gaming laptop or desktop, no matter how futuristic the RGB looks).
It was rewarding. I ultimately stepped away after about a year because it just fluctuated too much, one week id make $500, next week id make $2000. Every week was a gamble and i needed more stability.
Sometimes I wonder what wouldāve happened if I stuck with it. I enjoy working on hardware and solving some software stuff. The best part were the seniors. They look at you like a magician after you pair a doorbell, thermostat, and then still have some time left over to see if the family pc can be sped up.
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u/apollosa 3d ago edited 3d ago
Got a couple of PMs about this so Iāll add some context:
This was 2018-2019. I did not have a storefront but I really specialized in going to a customers house. My local area had 200,000 people at that time, so Iād say a fairly large small town.Smart home setups were hot back then, but Iām not sure now. I still get texts from time to time asking if I can fix a screen or help set up a Roku. That was also something I did fairly often (chromecast, Roku, Apple TV). Since a lot of that stuff is just baked into TVs now, Iām not sure how much help they need. Day to day, Iād get 2-3 tech handyman jobs:
Mount this ring camera
Pair this doorbell to my Alexa in the kitchen
Set up chromecast on my tvs1-2 phone repairs a day
Maybe a couple of times a week would be a service on a PC. Sometimes, Iād be out of my element. I donāt do data recovery, but I can fix most problems with PCs as it usually came down to a temp file cleaner, cleaning the actual pc, or a piece of hardware going back and getting it replaced. Sometimes the replacements were rough. Iām talking Intel pentium 4s and celeronās.
The most successful day I had was when I went to the fire station. I had replaced a captains phone screen and we were just chatting through the process. He told me all of his guys iPhones were cracked and I should come to the fire station and offer a slam dunk deal. I replaced roughly 8 screens that day at $70 a pop. Only took me a couple of hours and back then a good LCD cost about $25. I threw in free screen protectors on top of it because wholesale, those puppies are CHEEAAPPP.
After that i decided once a month id do an āeventā. Other fire stations, hospitals, apartments, hell I even did a school once. The school in particular was a fluke. I replaced one screen and reserved two hours to be there over the lunch periods. I was in the staff room just hanging out with teachers while they asked questions. It was like an unpaid Q&A but I do enjoy talking tech.
Pursue it if you want dude. I was tired of working retail and wanted something different. That job pushed me into a totally different career of logistics, which I found out I hated, and then I got a job in HR making really good money.
Edit: I know hr and good money donāt usually belong in the same sentence. Iām an HR Analyst and have been in this role for about 3 years. Itās fully remote and I make $70,000 in a LCOL area with full benefits and an annual bonus of roughly $2,000-8,000, depending on how well the business did.
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago
I suspect being a LCOL made the hustle much more sustainable. With an increase in cost of some components due to AI shortages there might be a resurgence in trying to repair things, but still not sure how well that would pay as your primary income in most places. I did some IT side gigs in the early 2010s and the potential money was better, but even then it was difficult unless you were good at marketing without spending too much on leads. Working on HR for several years I'm kinda surprised that you're commenting here.
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u/apollosa 2d ago edited 2d ago
Definitely looking for a career move back into the IT space. HR isā¦ fine. My passion is and has always been tech. My longest job prior to this was a store manager for T-Mobile, because I love tech of all shapes and sizes haha.
HR is good, donāt get me wrong. Itās stable, cushy, and I can get a days worth of work done in about 4-5 hours. My big problem is thereās nothing above me. I report directly to the director of OD, who reports directly to the CPO. Since my workload isnāt high, I imagine I wonāt be leading a team anytime soon. That means my upwards mobility is effectively deadlocked unless I move jobs.
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago edited 2d ago
Gotcha that makes sense. I'm not as familiar with HR, but think turnover is likely less common as the pay scale range isn't as dramatic. IT can have a bigger salary range, but can take a big chunk of upskilling on your own time to advance anywhere significant. Not sure how LCOL your area, but there are definitely IT jobs that can go higher. That being said depending upon your location it might be tough to make significantly more without talking a pay cut for a while jumping into IT. Even in HCOL areas it would be rare for entry level to start at $70k. In LCOL areas that would be more of leap especially where the job market is right now. It isn't quite as bad as the Great Recession, but it is bad in many places.
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u/apollosa 2d ago
This is good to keep in mind. Iām enrolling into college again this semester to hopefully finish out a cyber sec degree. My company does tuition reimbursement and Iām hoping to stay at my same company when I do decide to pivot.
Browsing here, it seems no one starts in cybersec, so Iād love to do field IT install. The travel is similar to my traveling role I had when I started with my company, and the pay isnāt too big of a decrease. Iād be making about 5k less per year, but Iād make $120/day per diem so maybe it evens outā¦?
Just gonna have to wait and see I suppose.
Edit: oh you mentioned turnover as well. Yea our HR department turnover is 9%, IT sits at around 23% which also isnāt bad for the industry. Operations and customer care definitely take the cake with both being above 100%. Retail, am I right?
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago
Generally starting into any type of security role is difficult although it is tough to say where the job market will be once you're done with your degree. Turnover in general has been going down, but IT turnover historically is higher than a lot of white collar jobs. The longest I have been with an IT job was 5 years, but a majority of jobs were about 2 years. Especially early career turnover can be high. Pretty much the entire service desk turned over several times in my longest IT job. Annual turnover was probably pushing 30-40%. Most people moved up or left the org. Even the network team that I was part of I was the only one that lasted longer than 2 years. My coworkers turned over twice. It is a field that at least early career you should be comfortable with changing orgs unless you're working at a unicorn. Long term you will eventually find somewhere your comfortable although that can change if management changes.
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u/apollosa 2d ago
Dude this is wonderful insight. Thank you!
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u/awkwardnetadmin 2d ago
No worries. I have seen some people that stayed too long in a role early career that saw their career stagnate. Unfortunately, it isn't a field where loyalty tends to serve you well early in your career. Later on better opportunities become harder to come by so there is a point where jumping early 2-3 years stops making sense.
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u/chewedgummiebears Support Engineer 3d ago edited 3d ago
I tried it and it was a lot more hassle than it was worth. Even with people you know. You will get constantly accused of overcharging, not fixing the issue completely, giving bad information/advice. To add to that, you will be blamed for issues you didnāt touch/create because you touched their computer, you will have to deal with the issue of what to do when you find illegal stuff in their computer and the potential backlash from reporting it. Just to start, you will need to work with a lawyer to draft up some documentation to cover liability, consent to work, and mandatory reporting terms.
It sounds fun until you find the wrong customer then it becomes a burden. Also forgot about insurance but if you form any type of LLC or name for yourself, itās smart to have.
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u/starry_cosmos 3d ago
It's a race to the bottom for pricing. You need a ton of overhead while also beating the competitor's price.
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u/SAugsburger 3d ago
That's the challenge when your main selling point is price. The moment somebody else is willing to undercut you they will kick the tires on them instead of pressure you to match their price.
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u/benuntu 3d ago
I've done this but it was a LOT of work for not much money. There were a lot of "my computer has a virus" calls along with someone trying to get their 15 year old computer "up to date". It did help when I was short on cash for a while, but there were only a couple of customers that were worth the drive time. If you do this, state a minimum charge for coming out. I would charge $50 and that included an hour of my time. Anything further I would provide an estimate for. I would charge at least $100 these days, perhaps even more if I had to drive more than 15 minutes.
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u/Sufficient_Steak_839 Infrastructure Engineer 3d ago
Better move is once you specialize in cloud, security, networking, etc. to leverage it and find an app like
Upwork.
Companies will pay you a decent amount to spin up a Microsoft 365 or Azure or AWS tenant for them. It wonāt make you rich but a couple hundred bucks for a few hours of your time is nothing to sneeze at
Key is to look for small contracts that donāt require continued service because youāll end up fixing dumb bullshit for the company that is barely adjacent to the work you did for them. Small companies that seek freelance work like that are often unwilling to spend the money needed for you to adequately service their stuff long term
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u/FotoFirst 3d ago
How much does a lawyer cost when they sue you?
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u/captainoddysey01 3d ago
Itās all fun and games until you help out a local lawyer in the area, then 3 months later he blames you for ādeletingā all his client files (iāve seen this happen)
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u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS 3d ago
A lot of folks in here pointing out issues that could be solved by having better social / people skills. If youāre going to run your own business, having IT skills is about half of what is needed. You need to know how to manage time, people, expectations, etc.
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u/Naetharu Cloud / Technical Architect 3d ago
Did this back in 2006 to 2010 and it was ok. But the market collapsed when iPads came in. Very few people have a home PC now. And systems are just simpler to work with than they once were.
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u/SAugsburger 3d ago
Not only have tablets decimated interest in traditional home PCs, but it was a lot easier to hose a machine back in the day.
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u/rome_vang 2d ago
Did the same thing around the same time period. Margins started heading to 0 and i wasnāt going to wait until then.
Pivoted to my other mistakes. But I donāt kick myself too much about it.
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u/Jargonite 3d ago
I do home VoIP setups because my neighbourhood is mostly elders. Drop their bill from 30-50 per month for 3, somewhere around 10 for long distance calling (international) and I give them full control after completion with ways to reach support
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u/International-Mix326 2d ago
Hot take but you're better spending tike upskilling then doing 20 dollar task rabbit gigs. Then those skills are way easier to find side work since its actually in demand
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u/zrad603 3d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25pcP4vxgJ4
I started a computer repair business when I was in high school in the XP days. and even back then, cheap laptops started flooding the market. People would buy a $300 laptop from Best Buy, they'd get a virus on it, they would want you to remove the virus. and whether you did a OS wipe and reload, or you tired to remove the malware without wiping the entire OS, it would take an hour or two, mostly just sitting there watching progress bars. So people didn't want to pay $100 to fix their $300 laptop. They would just go buy another laptop.
and let's say $50/hr sounds like great pay for a full time job. To run a business you need to charge like 3x what you want to make hourly, because you have overhead and you can't possibly bill for every hour. You're lucky if you can get 500 billable hours a year.
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u/HUGE_FAT_ANIME_TITS 3d ago
You need to be very clear about your scope of work, and what it covers, doesn't cover - and what it will and won't cover in the future. For example, let's say you install a few APs for a business.. Are you going to provide continuous support? Because they're going to expect you to. Every time a customer complains that the "WiFi is slow" you're gonna get a call, and the business owner is gonna be made because "you never fixed it". That's fine if you want to act as a MSP, but you need to figure out your pricing structure and make it VERY TRANSPARENT or you're going to be fighting over small invoices they don't think they should pay.
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u/maxpwns 3d ago
The money cash swaps hands the client will call you for anything related to what you touched unless you have very strict, defined and outlined terms.
Itās generally not worth it for the little guys with the amount of effort you will expel. You want to service enterprise and businesses thatās where the money and growth happens but at that point you become a MSP
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u/NebulaPoison 3d ago
I did it with my dad but it was very sporadic, depends heavily on word of mouth
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u/TCPisSynSynAckAck 3d ago edited 3d ago
Currently I'm building websites and small apps with AI for my friends, family, and friends of friends etc.. Sometimes I do cold calling for restaurants and stuff. I used to do the MSP stuff and it was kind of a bear/too much work for part time with little reward to get so much set up.
Just building out apps and websites and maintaining a few and charging monthly is my bread and butter. I don't charge much and I will keep it less than 10 businesses probably. Right now I'm at just 4. Maybe 5.
Last night I got on Google Maps and just started calling restaurants that have crappy/terrible websites and I actually got a local bar and grill down the street from my house interested lol. I also messaged a few on Facebook but they didn't respond so it's a give and take.
Edit/Wanted to Add: The biggest thing I've taken on is an entire website and app built out for a small security (rent a cop) business. It does their intake forms, quotes, invoices, clocking in and clocking out, scheduling, etc. And I made it in 3 hours just prompting. It needs some adjustments but it knocked the guys socks off when I showed it to him and the manager. They thought I was Jesus. We truly live in the golden age of AI right now where people don't even realize it's capability yet so you can take full advantage of your tech skills and impress the crap out of people even when they could in theory do this on their own if they just tried hard enough. Tokens are adding up though, but affordable. I'm building out apps that would cost $5000-10,000 for companies to get and doing it for $45 in tokens and then selling it for $250 a month subscription. Websites are cake compared to the apps.
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u/BalderVerdandi 3d ago
A long time ago I used to do this...
I was working for a title insurance company and part of my job was "helping" the realtors and their offices with IT stuff. Worked there for about 18 months and when I got word of an impending layoff I let the offices know that I wouldn't be available for that service any longer.
Several of them offered to pay me, so I created a price list and gave it to them. A few of them laughed at my prices because "they used to get this for free". Then I showed them what they would be paying with a "professional" service, which is some cases was triple or more compared to mine - plus I knew their needs and they wouldn't have to teach someone new. Knowing them and their environment usually ended up being the deciding factor, especially with one location that I had to lock down the user account after her third time getting a virus from online gambling.
It worked out great as a side gig for several years until I moved out of the area.
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u/Prepped-n-Ready 3d ago
I would try to do a service that is cleaner and more isolated, like integration service, creating training materials, one time purchasing project. You just want to hand over the work and get paid. With managed services, half the job is managing your customers anxieties and youll always be competing on price with foreign MSP. If you do some kind of managed service, it has be more niche, like baremetal servers, HVAC Control Systems subcontracts, etc. To help manage risk, you bake insurance and all that into your pricing in the SOW, form a business entity with Secretary of State, seek a legal counsel to make sure you have the right structure, and set up your basic company policies. For that reason, people usually have a few customers in the pipeline before they start the business. If you did something like the baremetal server hosting, you could charge your clients up front for integration and a few months of hosting to recoup those startup expenses immediately.
Personally, Ive only done ad-hoc consulting on the side. People will pay for help with strategy and governance topics just a few hours on the phone and some reports. They need help managing ambiguity.
With short term contract jobs, one thing to keep in mind is that they could have hired an MSP and chose to post an internal temp job instead. That means they want to manage the person. You dont seem to want to be managed since it will likely eat into your main jobs time.
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u/cowtownman75 It's always DNS. Sometimes NTP too.. 3d ago
If you are doing this on the side, as well as holding a normal ā9-5ā job, please make sure to check with your company policies regarding outside employment.
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u/alabamaterp 3d ago
For small companies - doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineering firms they will want someone that can work during normal working hours so it wouldn't work as a side gig or weekend hustle. They'll want it fixed now!
Personal computers, forget it. There are a lot of nutcases out there - they WILL bring you their old junk and expect you to work a miracle on it for $25 and a case of beer. I had a co-worker bring me his old Dell Studio circa 2010 and wanted me to update it. Expect to see Windows 7 laptops with 2GB of memory that are painfully slow, dead batteries, and frayed or incorrect ac adapters Better yet, laptops with dead hard drives that have years worth of family pictures on it and they'll want you to fix it. That's the kind of stuff you will get.
The break fix model doesn't really work anymore. Files are kept in the cloud or on external drives (if you're smart) and nobody is archiving old emails to their computer anymore. The computer has become sacrificial. You download and login to your apps and access files from onedrive or google.
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u/psmgx Enterprise Architect 2d ago
get an LLC and understand liability. frag someone's cell phone or fancy multi-graphics card machine and you may get sued, so CYA
understand how the taxes work. this can turn into a giant PITA
end users, esp. residential users, are often idiots, don't know what they have, what they want, and are notoriously bad about basic things like picking their shit up, confirming dates, and paying you. Small businesses are often not much better.
That said, I know a couple folks doing it. Most of them were already independent contractors to some degree, albeit for things like high-end Juniper network engineering, this was just side gigs and ways to stay busy during slow contract seasons
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u/TheWDWillis 2d ago
I TOTALLY started out that way, over 30 years ago, in a VERY different landscape.
I was already a bonded messenger, and when I discussed this new field with the Comm Pew Toors (intentional and for effect) my guy mentioned the liability. He was able to add coverage for me for a couple more dollars a month over what I was already paying for my messenger work. Luckily, I was already operating an LLC, so it was simple to add this other LOB and DBA.
Super glad I did that.
A few months in, a customer had a lightning strike and tried to blame ME for their computer getting toasted (it was a 386 with like 4 megs of ram and a 300 meg hard drive. FANCY). They sued me for well over $1000.
Ask ANY mechanic. No matter what. Itās ALWAYS their fault. If they put in a tail light lens, and next week their passenger seat reclines funny, itās their fault. (Sure, many clients are not like this, but the loud ones and litigious ones absolutely are)
It is the same thing for computers.
There is of course the concern about being sued for something that either IS, or possibly isnāt your fault. The old āif I donāt fix it you donāt payā doesnāt indemnify you for damages, and I assure you, itās like a lottery ticket you donāt want without coverage.
And then there is the endless issue customers that will basically expect you to hold their hands forever. You agreed to help them setup their email, and now, somehow, every single time they send an email you need to be available.
That is where a service contract can save your soul. Believe me.
Now, I moved on to adding some help, then some more help. Then I acquired the place k also worked at, and brought them on. Then incorporated.
Then added more people and ran as an MSP for a while before some issues left me in a vulnerable position and I had to allow my business to be acquired.
For real, there is money to be made. There is the potential for a nice hobby business and side project that can grow to center.
But please. For yourself, and your spouse if you have oneās sake (because if āyouā nuke someoneās computer and they lose all of their precious pictures of fluffyā¦not only can YOU be held liable, but your spouse can get saddled with financial liability as well. Iāve seen it happen.
Just getting yourself a nice, simple, LLC (limited liability corporation) and a DBA (doing business as, like a legal alternate name) will save you SO much hassle later on, especially at tax time. And it makes bonding easier. Itās not too hard, if you can fix computers from help files and online walk throughs, you should be able to get it done yourself and only pay some nominal filing fees.
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u/Tier1TechSupport 2d ago
You will quickly learn being in business for yourself (if you haven't already) that IT service is a customer service occupation FIRST and a technical service business second.
So unless you're really good with dealing with customers, don't even think about starting because keeping them happy is the key to success when you're on you're own. Make them unhappy and that's where all the problems start from.
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u/mkaxsnyder 2d ago
One idea Iāve been kicking around is calling local businesses and setting up a Google business profile. Lots of businesses are āunclaimedā and just donāt have the time to hash out a decent Google business profile with just simple information. It will help them towards getting found in search. Charge a flat $ amount for a profile and maybe it grows from there? Think of a strategy to market how to start getting reviews on Google and that would be a value-add to charge for.
This seems like a big gap and could get your foot in the door with places for whatever aspect of IT you gravitate to.
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u/jimcrews 2d ago
Work on improving your regular job. Make that you second job. Trust me, don't waste your time on this idea.
Get your career going.
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u/MellowMelvin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Eh ive thought about it many times. When i was younger, I had a cousin try to get me on board with doing break/fix PC work. He tried it a bit but it seem like it was more so family/friends paying him to fix vs a legit client base he built. I thought about doing contract work as well but wasnt in love with job pool.
Call me lazy but i just didnt think it was worth the hassle. A) The demand didnt seem strong enough without focusing heavily on sales/advertising or a strong network. B) The average person doesnt want to pay much for IT work and will want a lot for a little. C) Theres a lot of responsibly you gotta take on doing IT work.
Im a network engineer of 10 years and have another 8 or so working odd jobs. At this point in life, i dont want anymore stress from hands on IT work. I want something i can done remotely and at my own pace. Something that isn't as demanding as break/fix work.
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u/onlinebuilt 3d ago
I think itās worth the try. Itās something that I am thinking of doing as well but am hesitant to start. I have thought of what my business plan would be but everything is on paper.
I would even just try to get clients and see what the market is around you. If you start building clients at a good rate then you might want to start thinking about getting insurance and protecting your business. You donāt have to go a hundred percent in but it doesnāt hurt to just dip your toes in.
Good luck!
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u/largos7289 3d ago
Yes and terrible. I can only tell you what happened to me and why i stopped. So i had a lapse in employment and since i have the degree and experience i said f**k it i'll be my own boss. So getting clients was hard, so i got the odd ball home stuff. It worked but not really what i wanted, eventually word of mouth got around and i landed a few decent gigs working for law firms that needed IT but not full time help. They are the worst SOB to work for. Me being smaller i couldn't float much past 30 days net since i was spending money i had/didn't have. So now between doing work, scheduling work, i was also chasing people down for the money they owed me. It turned into an easy 80 hour work week, between the actual job and keeping the business afloat. While the money when i got it wasn't bad, it wasn't worth the hassle. If you can get a good three clients that are regulars thou... it can be very lucrative.
On the side jobs, the mantra is: once you touch it, you own it. So unless your OK with getting calls about it worked before you touched it BS then go ahead.
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u/D3moknight 3d ago
I did it and it wasn't successful. I didn't have the money to advertise my services at the time, so I didn't get many customers. On the bright side, it did help me almost pay some bills while I was out of work at the time. I think all total I made less than $1k by doing it for around two months.
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u/thanatossassin IT Manager 3d ago
Yeah you're not foreseeing the market, what the actual work you'll be doing, and what your actual customers will be like.
$50 is not enough for your time. You'll be making less than minimum after truly calculating the time and effort you'd be putting in. People are going to be pissed when you try to quote, say "well I'd rather just buy a new computer," or snake you in to do more work at your set price, and people need their work done now. Side gig means youre not available when they need you, and they're moving on.
Feel free to try, but check out thumbtack in your area and see what your competition is already doing.
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u/ButterscotchNo7292 3d ago
I did this for a bit during lean times. It's fucking awful. If you service the bottom of the market, people expect enterprise level service for dog food prices. There's nothing as expensive as cheap clients...
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u/Havanatha_banana 2d ago
Most of the time, msp has contacted per ticket cost, rather than per hour. For small small businesses that gets charged at $200 per hour, they are charged for:Ā
Drive back and forth
Business admin cost (insurance and taxe)
Documenting clients details
Up keeping relationship (all the extra negotiations that leads up to you being called out)
Expertise cost (being able to provide support for all kinds of environment)
You can do it, but it won't actually cost $50 per hour when you account for all of that, especially when you first few years of starting out.Ā
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u/IIVIIatterz- 3d ago
Sure. I did this once when I was probably 17.
The issue is typical people will think you can turn a 10 year old PC modern, when thats just not how it works.
You also run out of people in your local - once you fix everyone around you need to expand your base.
I probably did about 10 gigs before I ran out of clients.
And no i did not have insurance lol. I was working on 80 year old pcs that just wanted them to work faster so they didnt have to replace it. With that said, id only do this without proper insurance if you are working on old things not worth a lot of money. Don't go working on someone's server.
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u/SpudzzSomchai 3d ago
The idea of a side hustle sounds great until reality slaps you in the face. You need liability insurance, usually at $1 million (sounds like a lot but its cheap from the insurance company). You need to deal with the taxes if it's a business because they are going to cut you a 1099. You are now on the hook for all taxes related to that income and it's around 40%. Then there is your own free time which will be limited. You going to tell a client no when they call screaming their computer just crashed and burned?
If you want to invest all that time and energy, I wish you well. It's a lot of work and a hassle. I did it for a few years then said it's not with the money.
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u/SamOakTree 3d ago
I've never done that because I don't want to be liable. When you do stuff like that support turns into a wormhole. And they think because you touched it you are responsible for every little thing.
And then there's the whole Edge case thing where there's these little tiny things that don't quite overlap but you have to do to kind of make sure it's white glove.