Deep Inside My Thoughts

Work’s been kinda slow due to the Summer slowdown, and I’ve been looking to make a little cash on the side.   I figured I can fix computers quasi-decently, so why not do that?  I’m good at that stuff, and sometimes I really even enjoy it.  So far, I’ve been a tech call guy for Danyale’s cousin and her friend Stephanie, so why not get paid for it?  So a few days ago, I put a feeler out on Craigslist (which probably won’t get anything, cause the Topeka page seems dead).   I said I’d fix computers for $25/hr for the first hour, and then fractional thereafter.   I think it would be kind of fun to do.

I’ve also kind of poked around on other things, like flyers.  I can get 500 black-and-white flyers made up for under $20.   The problem is, I just don’t know where to distrubte them at all.  Besides, how often does the average person need computer help?  Maybe 5 out of those 500?  Probably less.   Besides, if I just hand out flyers, or put them on houses/cars, it would backfire.   I make a point to go out of the way to not purchase goods which I have been unsolicited in the past.   So I don’t know how well that would work out.  I need to think about this some more, and think about the marketability of how to reach a target audience with as little cash as possible.

I also was playing around in Photoshop earlier, trying to come up with a logo.   With me, Photoshop is hit or miss.  Sometimes, I can do amazing things with it; other times, I can’t do anything.  The logo I made, and spent maybe an hour on, ended up looking like crap.  A logo isn’t supposed to be crap—it’s supposed to be professional and crisp.  And so far, they’ve been everything except crisp.

When I was a kid, I used to dream about running my own business.   With this, I still feel some of that ‘giddiness’ I had as a kid, but I know it won’t work out.  I’ll be lucky to get a few peolpe to give me a call, and those will be few and far between.  Besides, the margins in computer repair are fairly low, and thats why you see idiots like Geek Squad charging $100 to defrag your hard drive.  And the soccer mom who is willing to pay that much, probably won’t trust her computer to some struggling guy, espically because of his undercutter rates.    Computer repair might be a case where the more you pay, the better percieved value and service you get.

So part of me hopes this will take off, but the other part is realistic.  But, it would be both fun, and amazing if it did.   I used to joke with my Dad when I was younger, that I would start a business, and its sales would totally out do Alan Industries.  I bet he would be happy if I did make some money doing this.  And, that, is something I want to be able to tell him one day.