There are two pieces of advice that are often mentioned here on Technibble. They are:

1. It is a good idea to get experience while working from someone else before you start your business.

2. It is a good idea to build up your client base after hours, until it reaches a point where your day job is affecting your computer repair business. That way, it’s a soft slide into the shallow end rather than a jump into the deep end.

Stand alone, each of these lines are good advice. However, they not good advice if you were to do both of these at the same time. Let me explain.


This topic came up when a member on our forums mentioned that he currently works as a technician for another computer business, while starting up his own computer business on the side. He was trying to do the right thing by keeping his clients and his employer’s clients completely separate, so he wasn’t poaching any clients from his boss. So there shouldn’t be a problem right?

This is what you would call a “conflict of interest” which is defined as “when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other”.

While I highly doubt this forum member would do anything to harm his boss since he already has taken the moral high ground in keeping the clients separate; the potential is always there, even if it’s an unconscious decision.

There are also “insider secrets” that this person could unconsciously. For example, let’s say that his boss had developed a system where they could always fix computers in a very short about of time (shorter than most) and was always cheaper than everyone else. This gives his boss a competitive advantage over everyone else in the town and since this technician had to made use this system while he was working for his boss, he is obviously going to remember it. Once this technician goes out on his own, I doubt he is going to purposely use a slower and less efficient method to fix computers when he already knows a better way.

Now that there is a competing technician in town that going to do the exact same thing, the boss just lost his competitive advantage. This is why working for someone else as a technician and running your own business on the side is a conflict of interest.

This technician would also need to take a look at his work contract to make sure there is no non-compete clause in there which prevents him from starting up at all. In order for this technician to do the right thing by his boss, it would be better for him to quit his job completely before he starts his business to avoid the conflict of interest – and if his work contract allows it.

So, while working for someone else to gain experience and building up your business on the side are good advice separately, they are not good advice when put together.