Bad time to start up a IT / e-commerce company

[cellweb]

Hello All,
Just been reading through the forums, I'm an IT contractor who finds himself between contracts, so Ive decided to start up on my own offering IT support and consultancy to small / medium businesses and home users. I also provide online shops / and web hosting etc at cellweb.

So each day I find myself learning new products and keeping up to date on the latest technologies etc , it's now getting to the stage where basically I need to work out out to get customers. Other than advertising and leafleting small companies on trading estates etc , I am now wondering

A. Is there anything else I should be doing (probably - but what)
B. Is there actually a market out there given the current 'crunch' climate

Thoughts ?

[YODspica]

They say, its not what you know, rather who you know.

[FireFleur]

You are better off doing your own offering then offering services at the mo.

Come mid Feb is my guess when people will be wanting to do startup, people are waiting to see if they still have a job, and what will happen to the economy.

Keep advertising throughout, but you are better off building your own.

The problem with commerce is the supply chain has been shot, and the pound is in freefall, so you need something that doesn't rely on imports, better to be an exporter in the near future.

I have had to shelve some ideas and bring others to the forefront due to the economy, though I constantly hone and improve my bespoke systems, the upturn will happen in a few years, and if you can keep businesses ticking over right now, they will be worth a lot in the upturn. You cannot rely on credit to start a business at the moment, so it is all very guerilla style.

Contracting will return mid Feb as well, as the companies look to drop a lot of perms off the payroll to make the books look better, they tend to end up dropping more than they should and create huge blind spots, which they need to plug quickly, so really just use this time to build things.

No one wants to spend money on their business adding new things, so you can develop relationships by helping people, just know when to cut the juice so they are left owing a favour but you are not out too much. And look for the people willing to develop relationship they tend to be the businesses that will survive, you scratch my back I scratch yours is the order of the day for next few months.

But, hey things do turn up so the above is just a generality for the environment we are in.

[IS-James]

Because of the lack of jobs at the moment a lot of people who are being laid off are deciding to start up on their own. If you target these people with IT support and some kind of IT start up package you could bring in a lot of new customers.

[movietub]

Hello All,
Just been reading through the forums, I'm an IT contractor who finds himself between contracts, so Ive decided to start up on my own offering IT support and consultancy to small / medium businesses and home users. I also provide online shops / and web hosting etc at cellweb.

So each day I find myself learning new products and keeping up to date on the latest technologies etc , it's now getting to the stage where basically I need to work out out to get customers. Other than advertising and leafleting small companies on trading estates etc , I am now wondering

A. Is there anything else I should be doing (probably - but what)
B. Is there actually a market out there given the current 'crunch' climate

Thoughts ?

We sell online and offline - at our shop customers who work in retail themselves often ask about our online selling. They seem very interested whereas a couple of years ago a lot of people where still very dismissive.

I would guess a lot of tradtional retailers will be looking to sell online as an extra income stream - particularly given the current climate. Also traditional shoppers will be more inclined to try shopping online.

So I would say if you could effectively target people and offer a genuinely useful and quick turnkey solution to replicate their physical business into an online shop then there will be a lot of money to be made.

From what I can guage most peoples biggest hurdle is they rely on their tills inventory for order/stock control and whatever solution they are offered must either intergrate or replace what they have.

Maybe not what you were thinking of but I'm sure its worth considering this growing group of people.

[greenfingers]

My tip is do a lot of domestic PC repairs and talk, talk, talk about it everywhere you go.It may be the lower end of the market, but you soon get better contacts through it.-A big smile,& great attitude always make then feel you are doing them a favour, always make them think they are paying you a bit less than they should (I use-it should be thirty but you can have it for twenty five cos you made me a nice cup of tea, It sound much better than its twenty five-
-My mate started like this (as did I)and now he has a steady long term contract with some steel company-He was however reluctant to advertise by putting up cards in shops post offices and the chip shop wall etecetera-but dont be, it bloody works! and all sorts go to the post office and chippy-
There should be a lot of peole with new computers this christmas and they will all bugger them up and need you-Contact the PC world & similar shops to do sub-contracting for them-then you get to access their data base of customers and doors open once you are in somewhere-DO get your vehicle painted up in an unmissable way and do pick a good name-My mate TONY would'nt call his firm 'Technical Tony'-he's got something very boring instead-(like EG Tm services-all that stuff is sh*te)but my silly name of Mr Greenfingers really gets me remembered...
pehaps call yourself 'I've mended IT.'
One final thing, get your money on the day-always offer some inducement like less for cash-less if you pay me now-
good luck.

[GBMaps]

Hone your skills to either providing IT services which will directly save(or make) people/businesses money in the short term and like FF says, startups will be popping up all over soon.
And when they do, make sure you're there to help them every step of the way, kind of like speculative investors do, if you help enough of them there startups - at least one or two should pay off in the long term;-)