Doing the stupid (Moonlighting job)

Nakatomi2010

So, recently my wife showed me the new definition of Accident in the dictionary which read "Pregnant" and I've come to the conclusion that we need more money. While we both work respectable jobs and could probably manage it, our debt to income ratio is basically a break even every month and I'd like to end that.

I consider myself to be a respectable computer repair technician, hell it's what I do during the day, but I work on businesses. My intention would be to work solely on residential systems. Basically going back to my grass roots of Circuit City/Best Buy, but working at night.

The question I'm posing here is can I can folks to work with someone who's only available after 5pm on weekdays and most weekends? Can I also get a reasonable cliente via Craigslist or should I be posting elsewhere?

Also, I'm looking to simply made hard cash rather than an actual client base I was planning on using a "Name your price" system which I realize could very easily backfire, but also prove to be good for word of mouth business.

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/entrepreneurs/articles/20100518/1505489473.shtml

Something along the lines of the article above, except a little easier to manage since I'm essentially going folks to pay what they feel my time was worth to them.

Probably backfire completely, but I'm kinda curious to see how it goes.

Aside from people ripping me off, what should I be aware of when doing this?

matt has a problem

The problem with a "pay what you want" system in this case is that someone will have you work on their limping along machine, you'll clean the mess of malware off it and update all their drivers, go to get paid and they'll think "Well my cousin's nephew's best friend's third sister's gerbil knows computers, how much would I pay him? DIDDLY!" and you make minimum wage at best. People who go to Panera know how much a sandwich normally costs, they have a frame of reference. People who get PC help nine times out of ten both have no idea the difficulty of it, plus most think "Hey it's just a hobby, he LIKES doing it!"

As for the after 5pm part, the only way I could see it working is if you advertised yourself as an on-call or emergency help tech, or if you ran it as a pick up/drop off service: they call you, you come get their machine, fix it and return it the next day/week/whatever.

Crashtard

matthasaproblem wrote: »

The problem with a "pay what you want" system in this case is that someone will have you work on their limping along machine, you'll clean the mess of malware off it and update all their drivers, go to get paid and they'll think "Well my cousin's nephew's best friend's third sister's gerbil knows computers, how much would I pay him? DIDDLY!" and you make minimum wage at best.

My dad fixes computers on the side for the extra cash, and this is a pretty fair description of how it works out. He'll spend hours cleaning all of the shit off (malware and whatnot), and when there's a hardware problem it's even worse. Ultimately you'll spend 4-5 hours working on someone's computer and get paid 50 bucks if you're lucky. It's good if you've got nothing better to do, but I wouldn't expect to be making a bunch of money doing it unless you spend a LOT of time working.

November Fifth

I think the time has passed for this to be a real money maker, but you lose nothing by advertising your services.

You might want to add that you can set-up computers and wireless networks and safely dispose of old hardware.

ceres

Congrats, by the way. It might not feel like a congrats kind of thing now, but I'm sure it will.

RadicalTurnip

Not directly related to what you ask (though people have talked about that a bit) but it sounds to me like you really need to start laying out a budget. If you and your Significant Other both have well-paying jobs and you're living month-to-month, getting some on-the-side money isn't really going to help, I'm sorry to say. It's a little late, but you need to start living within your means (and saving some) now.

And yes, as Ceres said, congratulations!

MichaelLC

RadicalTurnip wrote: »

Not directly related to what you ask (though people have talked about that a bit) but it sounds to me like you really need to start laying out a budget. If you and your Significant Other both have well-paying jobs and you're living month-to-month, getting some on-the-side money isn't really going to help, I'm sorry to say. It's a little late, but you need to start living within your means (and saving some) now.

And yes, as Ceres said, congratulations!

This.

Brining in another $100 a week isn't really going to o much but add stress and may end up costing more in travel costs, etc.

Having said that, I'd look for some seasonal work close to home; retail may still be hiring, though it's getting late. Usually overnight stocking pays higher than regular shifts.

CattleCrasher

Computer repair won't net you crap. You fix a dude's computer once and you're done. Maybe you get paid. But now you gotta waste time finding more customers.

In your situation what you want to do is have repeat customers. So lets take a one man car washing business for example. Cars don't stay clean forever, this is good because it means you can come back and do the same job again for the same pay. If you have maybe 5 good customers who want their cars washed once a week, and you charge say 20 bucks and you spend an hour or so washing their cars, that's 100 bucks a week right there, for about 5 hours of work.

Obviously, there's a lot more to this. You have to offer a valuable service and know how to separate yourself from other types of car washes. Take time to learn the difference between a good wash and a bad wash and explain it to your customers.

Stuff like that.

Iceman.USAF

Man...second and third the car-washer so hard. I work on an AF base in a foreign land, and there's a guy I pay 30 euro a month to wash my truck once a week. It's awesome. I come outside to go to lunch and BAM clean truck. Or I come in on Saturday to hit the gym BAM clean truck.

azith28

Well, I had a little side business very much like what your proposing. It only included 1 regular client and 1 as needed client but every bit helped when i was unemployeed.

My one regular client came by happentance, however expanding on the idea could work for you. You basically want to find someone who just retired, or has been retired a few years and wants to learn how to use the internet . Maybe even advertise at a retirement home. Advertise the ability to show them how to find old music, and burn CDs, use itunes, avoid obvious viruses and spam. Also mention some lessons on sites that you have done a little research on that can show people how to trace geneology. (I've noticed that this is a big hobby and its much more doable with the internet to track down and generate family trees).

Keep your charges low and reasonable. 20-30 dollars an hour is much lower then a class or most people would charge. Once you have some customers you can also let them know you can repair or upgrade some issues, or suggest upgrades or new purchases.

EggyToast

A coworker of mine moonlights in real estate and (I think) at Staples, for extra moolah, since he has a kid, a non-working wife, another kid on the way, an expensive apartment and doesn't get paid very much.

He gets by with extensive budgeting. His wife hunts coupons and their food purchases are very budgeted, and they generally do not buy stuff — they rely on family for a lot of their materialistic comforts, so they get, say, a hand-me-down TV.

I think controlling your budget is going to do more for you than moonlighting, though, because without it, you're more likely to get the extra money and find a way to spend it, rather than figure out a way to make your current money go further.

From what I'm told by my friends who are new parents, babies are as expensive or as cheap as you want them to be. Cloth diapers, breastfeeding, and borrowed/cheap clothes make for a very inexpensive newborn, whereas disposable diapers, formula, and new clothes every month make for an expensive one.

TL DR

A recurring Craigslist ad is a good way to bring in customers. You really want small (5-10 user) businesses, though. If you know your way around a server, you'll be happy to have repeat business in a network you're familiar with as opposed to the irregular "our family's 5-year-old computer don't work and we ain't want to pay much to fix it"

$30/hr is too cheap. Look at the competition: Geek Squad will charge $300+ just to format a PC and re-install Windows, in addition to nickle & dime charges for everything else. A proper IT firm will still charge $100-$150/hr. Shit, a plumber making housecalls will charge closer to $100/hr.

My advice? Describe your situation in the ad. "I have a Real Job in IT, but we're expecting (awwww) and I want to earn a little extra cash working nights and weekends."

TheFullMetalChicken

A bunch of helpdesk guys i worked with did what your talking about for the company they worker for but only for workers computers. Since they were helpdesk they had a bunch of benches open and if it was a slow day could clean a computer pretty fast. They charged a flat rate for all services and the computer was ready (usually) at the end of the day. The rarely saw more then one computer a week so they weren't rolling in the money but it was a small company.

IronKnuckle's Ghost

I'd also suggest coming up with a flat rate, say $50 for the first three hours followed by $X for each additional hour per customer.

Fagatron

I have done this for the last two years while I've been looking for work and I have relevant advice!

• Bullets!
  
  
• Set a flat hourly rate. If you are going to spend money traveling establish that you will charge for the entire first hour and possibly charge more for the first hour (if your flat hourly rate $30 charge $60 for the first hour etc. Coincidentally this is my hourly, I only do the first hour rate if I'm servicing someone outside of the city because of the time/money investment to get there) this isn't really as much of an issue if you live in a closely spaced urban area and you don't spend much in time or money traveling. For services that are time consuming but not labor intensive and that you do frequently (like a full backup/reformat/reinstall) feel free to set a flat rate. I charge $100 for that and it usually comes out to cheaper than my hourly. If it's more expensive I just charge them my hourly (3 x $30 = $90). If someone is willing to let me take their computer home (a surprising amount of people are, I've only had one guy even ask for my Driver's License number as proof of who I was beforehand even) I am more lenient with the pricing because I am able to relax and do it at my leisure.
  
  
• Do a free diagnosis. If you are a good tech usually you'll be able to do this over the phone and not lose time/money on travel. I've only had one or two occasions where I wasn't able to do this, plus one where someone took advantage of this instead of calling up Dell and now I don't answer their calls anymore 'cause fuck those guys. This may seem at odds with the first hour rate, but it avoids you feeling like a douchebag charging someone when you didn't actually do anything, and it instills a large amount of client confidence and satisfaction if instead of hedging around the issue and hemming and hawing and charging them for it you just straight up say "I can't fix this." and then find them someone that can or give them advice on buying new hardware free of charge.
  
  
• If it's legal in your area and your area is not incredibly rural and time consuming stick fliers advertising your services to people's doors. I've probably put out more than 10k of them at this point and I haven't gotten a single call from someone unhappy about me bringing my advertising to them, which is something I really worried about at first! I have gotten a lot of customers though. I found that for ever 1000 quarter page fliers I put out I would get 2-3 customers minimum. This sounds like a lot of fliers but it's only a $15 investment, plus a few hours of your time if you walk at a good clip. Also do not neglect community billboards and other places fliers loiter.
  
  
• Be personable, and upfront with your costs. Keep them in the loop as much as you can on what you're doing, use metaphors to help them understand. If someone tries to haggle with you be aggressive and firm about your costs. Explain how much time you spent, and explain what you did with that time. Explain the value you provided for them over some dumbfuck from Best Buy. I have only had one dude try to haggle with me, in the end I only got $80 from him when he owed me $90 because it was "all the cash he had on him" when he knew damn well how much I was charging before I got there as it was a job I had to come back a second day to finish because I needed to prepare some install discs and other things. He initially tried to lowball me for $50, what a douche. I don't answer his calls anymore because fuck that guy as well.

Honestly it has been pretty good times, I've made more than a few thousands of dollars in the past year, and I have a few regular customers, including a guy who owns a couple surf shops and has me do work for them; and a Dentist who has me do work at his office sometimes. I know I could have made a lot more if I had actually gone out and advertised regularly but honestly the idea was never to carry myself with this permanently so much as help me limp along and supplement my income from Recruiters and Temp Gigs while I waited for another full time job to materialize so I could go back to school. Now that I'm starting a job as a bigshot hacking security analyst this month, and I'll be going to school again soon when I'm not at work, as it is I'm going to have to divert any additional work I can't handle towards a friend I've got in the city.

If you live in an urban, or even a suburban area, you could make a good income and even do this as a legit full time business if you take the time to go out and flier regularly, and eventually advertise in more mass media forms as money permits. This is of course assuming you are both good at your job and able to really relate to your clientele. You can be the best tech guy EVER but if you don't have the soft skills you would be better off pursuing a second corporate gig because if people do not like you you will not get repeat business, much less referrals, for work in people's homes.

Also the rates I charge are obviously pretty low. Initially I was charging double and doing about the same, maybe a little less business, but then I wanted to try and go for a scattergun approach, get a lot of clients, and possibly gradually raise my rates and taper down to a solid sized base of regular clients. This was the plan if a the IT sector didn't turn up and I had to turn it into a legit business instead of a moonlighting sidemoney type of thing; another reason why I didn't advertise as much as I could of, it was all under the table and I was very away of the legal implications of that. Then the contracting from the recruiter picked up big time and I both didn't have the time and wasn't as compelled to advertise as much, and I figured if the contract work was picking up a real job would be around the corner and I didn't want to overextend myself and let my clientele down.


If you want me to elaborate on anything just ask. Also congrats on the kid, can't wait until it's the right time (or maybe not the right time) to have kids with my girl. Kids are awesome.

EDIT: Saw Timothy Leary guy's post. I found Craigslist ads to be pretty much a waste of time on the SF Bay Area boards. It is obviously going to depend on your area but at least here the glut of unemployed IT dudes and Teenagers thinking they know how to IT charging $40-flat-even-if-it-takes-five-hours-oh-god-wtf-are-you-thinking-you-are-devaluing-everyone ads. I ran them for a good 6 months to a year and only got one customer off of them. I found more direct, material methods of advertising to be far preferable.

EDITx2: Also going back to Leary guy's post, businesses are definitely better. I would also stick fliers on/around the mailboxes/doorposts/doors for small businesses and doctor's offices after hours. I have had success with this as well.