Doing computer repair work on a part time basis is a great way to ease into the business. It can take many months to get your client-base up to a level where your income is similar to that of your full time job. It takes time to learn how to make money and its kind of like easing yourself into the shallow end of the pool rather than jumping into the deep-end and hope that you learn to swim really quickly.

Before you start a part time business on the side, there are a few things you need to consider first.

Making The Jump
If all goes well and you believe that your new computer business is making enough money for you to live off, when you quit your main job you need to keep in mind that you may lose the benefits provided by your previous employer such as health insurance (in the USA anyway) and you now need to factor those into your cost of living if you still want to remain covered.

When you make the switch, your tax setup may also change. For example, in Australia our primary and secondary income are treated separately tax wise (secondary is taxed more) and you need to specify to your accountant or to the government which one is your primary income. This can greatly change how much tax you pay so be careful not to get caught out.

Conflicts of Interest
Before you start doing computer work part time, you need to make sure that there isn’t a “conflict of interest” in you doing so. I talk about conflicts of interest fairly extensively in this article. Basically, a conflict of interest 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”. For example, you might be subconsciously sabotaging your current employers business to help your own.

Think about it like this: If you owned a computer repair shop, employed a young technician and then found out he’s starting his own business to compete with yours, what would be the first things going through your head? “Is he stealing my customers? will he copy my work processes? I trained this guy and now he is using my knowledge against me”.

You need to make sure that your part time business doesn’t conflict with your current employer. If it does, the right thing to do is to quit completely and start your own business full time.

Non-Compete Agreements
Another consideration worth looking at is whether you are on some sort of a non-compete agreement. If you signed a contract with your current employer you should check it for some sort of a non-compete agreement. You may find that you are not allowed to start your own computer repair business within a certain time frame, even if you have quit the job completely.

9 to 5? Not a Problem
I have heard many computer technicians say that the problem they have is that they still have a 9-5 job so they can only get on-site after hours. They need to keep in mind that most residential clients work 9-5 as well.
Instead of your work hours being a disadvantage, turn it into an advantage by making it a selling point. I remember there was a technician on the Technibble forums a few years back who had this problem and turned it into a selling point by making their business slogan “We work when your not” (or something to that effect).

If you can only work after hours, I recommend that you don’t take on business clients because most businesses are open 9-5 and you may be needed to come in during those hours (especially in an emergency). Also, many new computer repair businesses don’t have the appropriate insurance to do computer repair for businesses. So you shouldn’t touch a business computer until you have adequate insurance in place. If you make a big mistake such as losing their data, they can sue you into oblivion for loss of business and opportunity.

Starting a computer business part time is how I started and it is the method that carries the least risk. Hopefully, you will encounter that magic moment when you realize that your side business is making more than your main job or your main job is hampering the growth of the side business. Then it is time to make the switch.