PC Support Anywhere Idea

braken2000

Oh, and by the way. Paypal is not that difficult to fathom, i am sure it will work absolutely fine!

dmg24

You really are not getting what I am saying.

You have a great idea, however thousands of people have great ideas every year, and the reason their businesses fail is because they have not fully researched the idea.

I would hate to see you back here in a few months saying that somebody has failed to pay, or even worse, someone is suing you.

When starting up a business, you need to look at all the possibilities:

Best case scenario, lots of people will want to use your service and they will all pay for the service provided.

Middle Scenario, some people will take up your service and some will pay.

Worst case scenario, few people will take up your service and only a small proportion of them pay. Of the few customers that you have, someone decides to sue you.

You need to start thinking like a businessman, as well as an IT support person.

dmg24

You also need to look at any potential competition, and find something to differentiate your service. A quick Google brought up several services.

braken2000

Okay, I do understand your points "dmg24". I however, and many other people, feel that this is a good idea.

As for all your points, i have taken them on board and am addressing each one. Many of which have a simple solution.

Potential competition seems to be extremely few and far between. I do not know what your search terms where, but I found very little in the way of cheap remote support.

I would also like to add that my service is not just limited by just remote support, i will also be offering phone based support as well as IM and email support.

Maybe the reason business fail is because there is so much negativity from other people. I personally feel that I can make this work as does my friend, who was as this point 4 years ago with a similar idea, he is now doing VERY well for himself.

dmg24

Okay, I do understand your points "dmg24". I however, and many other people, feel that this is a good idea.

Had you actually read my posts? You will find that I said several times that I thought it was a good idea.

You do have competition:

http://www.onlinepcsupport.co.uk/
http://www.intunegroup.co.uk/Product/Item.aspx?Category=Home&product=229&&WT.SVL=1
http://www.supportinabox.com/pages/homeuser.php
http://mattspchelp.co.uk/
http://www.surreypcsupport.co.uk/

That was from one page of search results!

You need to start thinking in terms of the marketing mix:

* Product
* Price
* Place
* Promotion

Also, if your friend launched a similar idea four years ago, are you not four years behind the market?

OnceBitten

There is a very successful small company doing computer fixes in my area. the guy charges about £30 per hour but he gets add ons as he always has just the extra bit of kit you need in his car! He advertises in just about every newspaper and advertising mag going but only in our immediate area. His is the first name you think of because it iIS everywhere!! Having said all that he is very good and his after sales service is excellent (free follow up phone advice etc). Why not try it this way - if it worked your way - he would def be doing it.

braken2000

His idea is related to support, but that is just part of it. My wording was not good there.

Anyway. I do read your posts. I am just trying to make an idea work, that is all!

Some of those sites are just forums.

What where your search terms?

braken2000

one of them has an installer called "dave1.exe". Lol. Trustworthy?

gingernuke

First Post woo hoo!

To partially circumvent the annoying ( from a remote control POV ) matters of privacy, firewalls and installing software remotely why not just use MSN Messengers built in 'request remote assistance' feature. Messenger sorts out the firewall issues as its already running on an open port, the end user has to request assistance from you and then allow you to remote control their PC and its installed by default on nearly all home PC's ( New PC's tend to give you a download link instead of an app as this means you get the latest version ). The upsurge in instant messenger users means normal people usually know how to use it so its using there existant skills.

I think its a top idea and should be encouraged. Bear in mind though that f you charge by the hour it takes a lot longer to fix an issue remotely over a 1mb broadband link than it does when your sat at the PC. A pricing structure would be better anyhow as customers have no idea about timescales on a fix, for example its easy to spend 4 or 5 hours stripping adware virii and trojans out of a PC and yet its quite simple but repetitive.

Anyhow I noticed your in Carlisle and Cumbria needs more good IT Engineers so good luck

braken2000

Thank-you for the post gingernuke and welcome to mse I am guessing. Good first post, nice to be encouraged.

The only problem I can see with using MSN Messengers built in support is that It might go against a term of use policy (using it for commercial gain). The software I am going to use automatically sorts out which port to use. The installer is tiny (less than a Mb). As I said before, if they want to uninstall it they can. There is no "web-based" free solution that I can find.

As for pricing, I have looked the so-called competition and they do two different things.

They either charge per 15 mins (£6.99!!!) Or charge per service. I just need some Ideas per service. It was going to be on a more personal quotation need.

I can only operate in evenings offering live support. Weekends too.

Fulltime job and all!

I am unfortunately not in Cumbria anymore. I am now in Huddersfield. I am going to offer local service. Such as small business server set-ups etc.