Monday, August 8, 2011

Should I someday start my own computer business?

I've been slowly reading John Elder Robison's book "Look Me in the Eye."  It can be rather inspiring.  I've always been interested in electronics myself, but I'm not really the engineer type.  I like the end product myself.  I'm a computer lover and I have upgraded and even built a computer before.  The very idea of making this into a job of my own has crossed my mind several times, but I feel I need some ideas of how to do it.  I'm confident enough that I can do this.

I did have one hang up when I built my first computer, though.  Thing is, it seems that I got the blue screen of death several times, randomly.  I took it to two different people, neither of which could figure out what was truly wrong with it.  I eventually sold it for way under what it cost to put it together.  I figured on selling it for parts or something.  I took the hard drive out, because I didn't feel that having had private information on it, despite having reformatted it.  The guy who got it said it's been working for quite awhile, so I'm pleased with that.  I did have some kind of inkling that it had something to do with that, because it didn't start doing that till after I tried partition it and the partitioning failed.  I reformatted it and re-installed and that didn't help the problem.  But the two computer repair people didn't seem to think so.  Oh well, now I know that if I didn't know, they didn't know, and having taken the hard drive out and someone using a new one and having it work for them, then it doesn't mean I suck at building and repairing.  Some things are just unknown even to other techies.

My first step will have to be to acquire a job that pays enough.  I can't picture myself living off of SSD or SSI forever as I am now.  And that certainly isn't enough to get me started in career of my own.

After making enough money, I could do research.  I'd look at ebay and see what computers with what specifications are going for and compare that to how much it would cost to put them all together.  Seems simple enough.  Then I'd know just what I'd be making and whether it'd be worth it.  In fact, if this started to go real well, then I could see myself doing a few a week, if necessary.  The more money I make, the more I can put together and eventually I could make enough to make a living off of it.  I can also guarantee my work for 90 days.  And of course those 90 days start as soon as the tracking number shows when it was or will be delivered.

But I can see one problem with this.  Taxes.  How do I do tax work on my earnings?  And what about the obligatory state taxes for those that buy within my state of residence?  That's something I know nothing about.

So as I think about it, I really need to acquire some more knowledge in order to get this started.

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