What would you do if you had a large amount of money to invest in your business?

[score444]

Although none of us won the $587 million dollar lottery last night, I found myself daydreaming about what I would do if I won. I had entered with a bunch of friends, so after taxes it probably would have been about $30 mil or so.
Let's say I won and put $3 million into growing my IT company. What would you guys do to grow it into a long term profitable company?
I would probably hire some top notch salesman, marketing people and technicians to go after business clients, as well as probably open several repair shops around my area to target the residential people. I know a lot of people on here have soured on residential customers and think the market is shrinking, but I still believe there is a need for a good residential repair company in every neighborhood.
What are your thoughts? How would you invest the money?

 

[mraikes]

Five minutes after 30 mil landed in my bank account there wouldn't BE a business.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Same as above!
Retirement time!

Build that big fancy beach hut down on a Caribbean island!

 

[Martyn]

Retire .......................

 

[Maniaman]

Like the rest, $30 million would be enough to get me out of the business. I'd probably try to sell it to someone, stick that money in a few different banks, and hopefully be able to live off the interest.

For the sake of the conversation though, assuming I was to stay in the business and invest a majority of the money I'd probably do the following:

-Buy the entire block my business is currently located on
-Build a new state of the art brand new shop with a large storefront, and even larger workspace
-Fresh asphalt for the parking lot (though that could probably burn through $30 million rather quick)
-Lease the remaining buildings on the city block I would then own
-Nice big lit sign, along with an LED Watchfire sign
-Hire a couple techs, secretary, and someone much better than me at sales to go pick up business clients
-Buy a fleet of business vehicles with graphic wraps
-Pay a company to develop a custom ticket system/pos system that's completely integrated, easy to use, has a nice interface, and is paperless
-Hopefully have a few million left over in the bank gaining interest

There would probably be a few million dollar charitable contributions in there as well.

 

[SupportCover.com]

Honestly....

Grow our business even more.

I'd enjoy the benefits of the winnings sure, but I'd get bored of not having anything to aim towards.

Our aim is to simply have a business that is second to none and that gives us our drive, determination, passion and commitment every day

 

[score444]

Honestly....

Grow our business even more.

I'd enjoy the benefits of the winnings sure, but I'd get bored of not having anything to aim towards.

Our aim is to simply have a business that is second to none and that gives us our drive, determination, passion and commitment every day

Completely agree with you supportcover. I am still in my mid 20s and would be bored out of my mind if I didn't work the rest of my life. I love the everyday challenge of growing my business and would definitely use the money to grow the company.
I would probably take a lesser role over time and just act as the CEO, but I would never want to give up my company.
I'd build a nice big fancy store and hire some top notch people to run it and all I'd worry about is growing it.
I can keep dreaming I guess.

 

[SupportCover.com]

Completely agree with you supportcover. I am still in my mid 20s and would be bored out of my mind if I didn't work the rest of my life. I love the everyday challenge of growing my business and would definitely use the money to grow the company.
I would probably take a lesser role over time and just act as the CEO, but I would never want to give up my company.
I'd build a nice big fancy store and hire some top notch people to run it and all I'd worry about is growing it.
I can keep dreaming I guess.

Why dream?

Gooogle / Microsoft / Apple started with nothing. Look where they are now!

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Well if I had 30 million dollars I would probably try to start my own pc sales company. Nothing major like dell or anything obviously but something like cyberpowerpc but very high quality.

Cases would be my own custom design (ever notice how theres something wrong with every single case? think about it! there is always something missing or wrong). If I feel 30million won't be enough for the quality im aiming for I will just stick with taking over the PC case market rather than the PC builder market.

It wouldn't even be about the money I just want to raise the bar so high that when someone asks who the best pc case manufacturer is they have to add "besides (my brand here) obviously"

 

[mraikes]

Darn it, now you've all got me thinking seriously about this including the mention above about Google/Microsoft/Apple.

My goal would be to grow my business by increasing sales and maintaining profitability. Just buying a big showy storefront and hiring a bunch of people will increase the size of my business, but not necessarily make it more profitable. Or profitable at all. When everything is said and done I'd be in danger of creating an expensive hobby that looks great but costs more than it brings in each year.

So first of all, I'd conceal the fact that I'd won 30 mil. Then I'd take steps to buy out my local competition including as strict a non-compete as local laws allow. Finally, I'd close their doors and simply forward their phones, websites, etc. to mine. Or possibly maintain them, but service all requests ultimately from "my" business.

The cost of doing so would be comparatively low - particularly given the widely held but odd (in my opinion) belief that repair businesses aren't worth more than mailing lists. Generous cash offers of 35-50k or even less would be quickly snapped up by many. A couple of the bigger and better holdouts might require more. But I've got 30 mil.

If I could eliminate the top 10 good competitors in my area my business would jump in volume and profitability. I'm talking the cream of the crop here, eliminating the guys that are actually trying to do it right and pricing accordingly. Not concerned about the CL bottom feeders.

As I achieved the goal of largely consolidating quality computer repair under one unified business I would of course hire techs, admins, expand space, branch out etc. But to me, that type of expansion in this scenario is the "cart" not the "horse".

And THEN come the Gulfstreams, mega yachts, my own island in the Caribbean, and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates hounding me night and day to leave 50% of my fortune to charity.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

I would speed up my expansion plans (on track for 1 - 2 stores a year - would increase to 5+), add in a restaurant chain as well as possibly a auto company and then focus on retail and holdings expansion. I love IT but love business more... so I would work on making all the companies fully self sufficient. and I most likely would buy a ok house.

I am also in my 20's yet and so the thought of no work... not gonna happen, but even now this company has 4 more years to become fully self-sufficient and fully profitable before I liquidate and look at other businesses.
I don't want to work 90hr weeks forever

 

[score444]

Darn it, now you've all got me thinking seriously about this including the mention above about Google/Microsoft/Apple.

My goal would be to grow my business by increasing sales and maintaining profitability. Just buying a big showy storefront and hiring a bunch of people will increase the size of my business, but not necessarily make it more profitable. Or profitable at all. When everything is said and done I'd be in danger of creating an expensive hobby that looks great but costs more than it brings in each year.

So first of all, I'd conceal the fact that I'd won 30 mil. Then I'd take steps to buy out my local competition including as strict a non-compete as local laws allow. Finally, I'd close their doors and simply forward their phones, websites, etc. to mine. Or possibly maintain them, but service all requests ultimately from "my" business.

The cost of doing so would be comparatively low - particularly given the widely held but odd (in my opinion) belief that repair businesses aren't worth more than mailing lists. Generous cash offers of 35-50k or even less would be quickly snapped up by many. A couple of the bigger and better holdouts might require more. But I've got 30 mil.

If I could eliminate the top 10 good competitors in my area my business would jump in volume and profitability. I'm talking the cream of the crop here, eliminating the guys that are actually trying to do it right and pricing accordingly. Not concerned about the CL bottom feeders.

As I achieved the goal of largely consolidating quality computer repair under one unified business I would of course hire techs, admins, expand space, branch out etc. But to me, that type of expansion in this scenario is the "cart" not the "horse".

And THEN come the Gulfstreams, mega yachts, my own island in the Caribbean, and Warren Buffet and Bill Gates hounding me night and day to leave 50% of my fortune to charity.

I definitely like your idea of buying out the competition. That would certainly be a very fast and efficient way to expand. But do you really think the majority of your competitors would be willing to sell for so low? I certainly wouldn't be willing to sell for anything close to that. All hypothetical of course.

 

[score444]

I would speed up my expansion plans (on track for 1 - 2 stores a year - would increase to 5+), add in a restaurant chain as well as possibly a auto company and then focus on retail and holdings expansion. I love IT but love business more... so I would work on making all the companies fully self sufficient. and I most likely would buy a ok house.

I am also in my 20's yet and so the thought of no work... not gonna happen, but even now this company has 4 more years to become fully self-sufficient and fully profitable before I liquidate and look at other businesses.
I don't want to work 90hr weeks forever

Sprinter have you expanded to a 2nd store yet? We work out of an office now but have been strongly considering moving to a storefront in the next year. We already sell a lot of computers, accessories, remanufactured ink, etc. to our customers, so we feel that by not having a storefront we are limiting our sales. Of course the increase in sales would have to outweigh the increase in overhead.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

Sprinter have you expanded to a 2nd store yet? We work out of an office now but have been strongly considering moving to a storefront in the next year. We already sell a lot of computers, accessories, remanufactured ink, etc. to our customers, so we feel that by not having a storefront we are limiting our sales. Of course the increase in sales would have to outweigh the increase in overhead.

the lease should be signed sat or monday for the 2nd store (35 miles away), and then a 3rd jan 1. (split with another company about 90 miles away).

Retail for us was a good choice, but our biggest retail item is cellular (phones and accessories) and phone repairs.

but our benches were overloaded again, so I added more

 

[PBComputer]

I would first expand my business. into areas we don't cover. take on staff. buy a few competitors out, buy a nice house, but would not retire yet, but make life easy and hopefully it would help improve my health.

Paul

 

[mraikes]

I definitely like your idea of buying out the competition. That would certainly be a very fast and efficient way to expand. But do you really think the majority of your competitors would be willing to sell for so low? I certainly wouldn't be willing to sell for anything close to that. All hypothetical of course.

The majority that low? Maybe not. But I'll bet it wouldn't take a whole lot more to get most of them seriously thinking about it.

I don't want to hijack this thread with a new, unrelated topic, but I could come up with many reasons why repair business owners could be enticed to sell - and sell low.

 

[16k_zx81]

Get out of PC repair altogether and buy into another field of business.

'Domestic' PC repair is about to become a dead end.

Sorry if I sound blunt, but most of us - smaller operators who's main customer base is domestic - will be out of business within 12 months.

Im not going to go into detail about why this will occur, for anyone who's been following the trajectory of the 'break and fix" model and the "pc model' it will be apparent what's going on and why.

My personal situation is that I will be job-hunting in the new year....

Jim

 

[score444]

Get out of PC repair altogether and buy into another field of business.

'Domestic' PC repair is about to become a dead end.

Sorry if I sound blunt, but most of us - smaller operators who's main customer base is domestic - will be out of business within 12 months.

Im not going to go into detail about why this will occur, for anyone who's been following the trajectory of the 'break and fix" model and the "pc model' it will be apparent what's going on and why.

My personal situation is that I will be job-hunting in the new year....

Jim

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you Jim. While residential repair is certainly on the decline, I do not see the market totally drying up within 12 months. My business has a good balance of business and residential. We have some businesses on MSP and other that prefer to stay with break fix. There will always be people who don't want an ongoing expense for their computers and would rather just fix them when they break.
Can you elaborate on why you think there will be no more break fix for residential customers?

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Get out of PC repair altogether and buy into another field of business.

'Domestic' PC repair is about to become a dead end.

Sorry if I sound blunt, but most of us - smaller operators who's main customer base is domestic - will be out of business within 12 months.

Im not going to go into detail about why this will occur, for anyone who's been following the trajectory of the 'break and fix" model and the "pc model' it will be apparent what's going on and why.

My personal situation is that I will be job-hunting in the new year....

Jim

I am agree 100% you Jim. I fought it and refused to admit what is coming. But proof is in the pudding. Or the lack of pudding.

I think what is killing us is also the same threat to Microsoft. The Cloud. My techy sons one engineer and one business man neither one even own a computer although they can have a free PC or laptop from my store. Don't get me wrong they both have had pc's galore and laptops then tablets.

They both are 28 and 34 years old. they both use their phones for internet search and when/if they want to do major work/research they work through lunch at their employers. they do not pay $99 per month for internet service, nor do they want the aggravation of owning a Pc/laptop at home. Now they do not even mess with the tablet anymore.

Please someone prove to me I am wrong.

I think for the next few years at least, IT money is going to be in either network analyst, software or web development. We have too much capacity in break fix for the moment.

 

[TenYardFight]

How hard is it to sell yourself as a tech consultant to businesses? I've found it relatively easy...