[sdiy] Small Business Idea

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Friday 04 November 2005 09:13 pm, DWa2898572 at aol.com wrote:
> I'm retired, so no sweat...And I'm not looking to conquer the financial
> world either! Just think a decent income can be made repairing things, and
> I can emulate idols of mine like Dr. Moog, or Grant Richter
>
>                                                                      Doug

Well,  let me tell you...

I started repairing things in the early 1970s.  First it was a stereo for a 
neighbor,  the occasional tv,  stuff like that.  I opened a shop in 1974 and 
closed that up within six months,  because even with minimal expenses it 
wasn't paying its own way.  I fixed organs,  in people's homes and in 
churches and did some industrial work and built things occasionally and so 
forth,  until 1977,  which is when I was working at a music store in the NYC 
area that was the one that sent me to both ARP and Moog.  There were only 2-3 
other guys in the whole NYC metro area fixing organs,  and I *still* couldn't 
make a living at that!

In the beginning of 1978,  having received an offer from a company to come 
look,  I accepted their offer and moved to PA.  This didn't last too terribly 
long either,  though it was quite interesting while it did last because they 
had an on-premises recording studio,  a pro sound company,  and sold a lot of 
that sort of gear.  After that there was work for a few different other 
repair shops,  mostly "TV Repair" places where I worked on assorted consumer 
electronics,  and all of those places are gone now.  I did work for an organ 
dealer and then for myself fixing organs in twelve counties around here,  
plus what I fixed out of my house,  which was okay but not really that much 
of an income.  In 1985 I walked into a computer store and asked the guy if he 
had a service department -- he didn't,  so I became one for him.  And we did 
computers,  some consumer electronics,  and musical instrument stuff.  That 
lasted through 1992,  and during that time we were a warranty service center 
for a whole mess of different brands of stuff,  including Yamaha,  Roland,  
E-mu,  Ensoniq,  Tapco,  Sunn,  Fender,  Moog,  ARP (before they went under),  
and a bunch more I'm not remembering offhand.

During this time there were a couple of things that messed it up.  We did a 
LOT of c64s,  and noboby bothers with those any more,  though when the retail 
price dropped to $99 nobody was inclined to get 'em fixed for $50-60 any 
more.  We had some manufacturers get weird on us,  like E-Mu deciding that 
they were only going to have regional service centers instead of all of the 
ones they had -- I know the guy in NY state who got that,  met him at a 
Yamana PACE seminar,  and wish him well.  We had the guy who'd offered us the 
space to operate in decide that he wanted that space,  moved to the other 
side of the building where we were below ground level (and I *HATE* working 
out of basements!),  and then problems with the sewage lines that resulted in 
repeated flooding of our business (it being the low point in the building) on 
a number of occasions over several months before it got fixed.  And the 
economy tanked,  somewhat.  None of the local places were hiring bands any 
more,  they'd get a DJ if that,  or nothing at all.  And the technology was 
changing in that stuff wasn't breaking the way it used to,  not anywhere near 
as much.  Computerizing lots of it and surface mount technology had some 
bearing on this.

So there was one more move,   only a short distance but with higher overhead.  
Also in a basement.  :-(   That lasted another two years before it got to 
where we had to pull the plug on things,  and I've been out of it ever since.

I used to think that synths were a lot of fun.  They still might become fun 
one of these days,  but fixing them sure took a lot of the fun out of it.  As 
it did for me messing around with electronics at all,  for a couple of years 
at least.  I'm back into messing around with it some,  haven't done much with 
it lately,  even though we closed all the way back in 1992,  but it's getting 
closer.

I sure don't think I'd ever even consider opening another business devoted to 
fixing stuff,  though.  What with the price of equipment these days I don't 
think that I'd be able to make any money out of it.  And having been there,  
done that a few times,  I sure don't think it'd be much fun,  not at all.

BTW,  all of my Roland and Yamaha and Moog and some other manuals went to 
another guy I know of who's in the repair business,  who somehow seems to 
have managed to hang on through all the years I've known him.  But I was told 
a while back that he doesn't work on keyboards any more,  so one of these 
days I'm gonna go over there and get that stuff back from him.  If anybody is 
looking for any of those manuals let me know offlist and I'll see what can be 
put together...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"