Tag: Small Business

Restaurants, bars, gyms, breweries are shut down in NJ

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Depending on how long this lasts, small business will fold. I know many of the owners of the local businesses, some of whom are my friends, will be impacted.
I know the pandemic will pass but the economic impact to these local businesses, some of which have been around decades, will be significant. New Jersey is nearing a total shutdown.

Small Business Idea

I have been for over 3 years) of acting on some of my small business ideas. There are a growing number of people with home offices in my neighbourhood. I do not know the exact number, but in the Montgomery, Montgomery Wood, and Montgomery Walk developments, we have close to 500 homes. Most of these homes have wireless.

Within a block of units (8 homes) there, at least half have wireless, and most likely all have a home computer with DSL or cable broadband. I based this assumption on my own block. I pick up at least 6 wireless signals from my family room. Most wireless signals have no security; almost all use the default router settings. There are many people like Mukesh and Nilima.

There is money to be made offering an in-home setup service for small offices/home offices. I can use my neighbourhood as a launching point for the business. I can place a small ad in the association newsletter or a posting on the website. Word of mouth will initially provide enough marketing to get from one gig to another. Hopefully, some home clients would refer me to small business clients. But first, baby steps.

I have thought up a short list of services I could provide.

  • Home networking
  • Wireless networking
  • Security
    • Patching
    • Anti-spyware
    • Anti-virus
    • Adware removal
  • PC tuneup (defrag, temp file removal)
  • Software installation and configuration
  • Hardware installation and configuration
  • Blogging and website hosting

I have yet to think much about how much to charge. Should it be an hourly or fixed price for a defined service (a la carte)? Should I have the clients sign off when work is complete? Should I incorporate or do a sole proprietorship until the business gets larger? Can I manage the workload? How do I limit this to weekends only at first?