Just thinking out loud here. I don’t know too much about starting my own business, but I have a pipe dream about having a side gig building on-site mini servers for clients who want to start their own businesses.
I could speak with the client, find out what type of business they’re developing, then pair them up with FOSS applications and hardware they’d run on their property. I could also update it all remotely. It would be like a plumber/electrician that can show people how to manage the tools I bring to them.
I was thinking of doing this as a really small personal business, meeting with the clients and installing systems for them.
You think there’s a market for something like this? I don’t really have anyone in my circle who knows the business or tech side of this.
Yup. But small companies can’t pay what you need to make.
I’m in the process of being shifted to do software dev and tech for a small company because what they need is actually what you are offering. But they don’t want to pay what it costs for those things.
So instead now I have to do it as I’m the only person on payroll that knows why we shouldn’t “just use Microsoft Edge to manage our data entry”.
A few weeks ago I was forced to launch a shared script app with zero testing because the boss took one 15sec glance at the project and said “this is perfect! Ship it now!”. Joke is on them cause it only works on my laptop and I still don’t know why.
Here’s the challenge: SMB generally has tight budgets and owners struggle to see the value in IT. It all “costs too much” in their minds.
And that’s before trying to sell them on ideas that are atypical.
Even from a cost-saving perspective, so much software out there is Windows-only that even hosting stuff with Linux servers can be a risk.
It really depends on the market segment, even then there’s a lot of risk involved, and business hates risk.
get their specs and deliver. no need to mention os. most things are already just a website in the cloud
What you’re talking about is generally referred to as an MSP, or Managed Services Provider. There is absolutely a market for it, but building a server here and there isn’t going to help you retire. The money is in service/support contracts, which if you find the right customers, can be a cash cow for minimal effort (which is why the MSP industry is full of greedy, slimy company owners)
I appreciate that explanation. I imagined there had to be a name for this type of business.
Since it’s mostly older folks here, I’ll have to think about what that could mean for them. Privacy, peace of mind, ownership, security?
You need to understand the unique demands of the business you’re going after and how your solution can help. Pricing model can make or break it - capital vs operational is a big deal for accountants.
There’s a market. One guy in my area runs all the websites for like a hundred local companies. I think he just has a bunch of Apache servers that he patches occasionally and collects checks.
Small companies often have a very small budget. They don’t want to pay a lot for software either.
Great to know, thanks for sharing! I’m going to start very slowly with people I know, lol.
ok, so… what you’re describing is a small-scale IT freelancing consultancy, specializing in local startups and FOSS foundations. While this is all very idealistic, realistically, a lot of people whoa aren’t familiar with FOSS OSs and office software will be… apprehensive about adopting that as a foundation, especially right out-of-the-gate. So, that will have to be the focus of your sales pitch: convincing your sales targets of why they should either start with our switch to a FOSS package (assuming you have a few different levels), and, particularly, yours.
This isn’t a new industry, btw, and you should do your research on what’s worked (and what hasn’t) for others in the past. You can make ok money doing it, especially in your local area. There might not even be a market for it where you live-- and doing this online and selling services globally is a whole different beast. There’s certainly a demand, and a growing one for it. There are also IT firms that specialize in it, and if you’re in a medium-to-large city, you may look for local job listings for companies that do systems conversions.
but, if you’re looking to do it freelance or start your own small business, go for it.
edit: where you live has a huge amount to do with this
Thank you for your feedback and advice. I’ll certainly take it cautiously.
The location is certainly a consideration. Median age is 65. Semi-rural. I think it would take a lot of patience and in-person planning.
Lots to think about!
oh… so is farming and farming equipment going to be a big consideration? because that is a big deal, especially when considering tech deployments and how it works with FOSS. spoilers: it doesn’t (or not well)! it’s a huge problems, in fact, and you’ll have to do your research for that.
but if it’s not a farming community, you. may have a lot of opportunity for systems conversions, especially personal/home conversions for those with older hardware. lots of older folks who could use a system tune-up/refresh with a nice linux install! make a old system new kinda thing, and now the whole town loves you! and a great way to scout out bigger business, especially if they have needy relatives! never turn down an opportunity to network!
edit: any local businesses/shops will be easy, though. don’t bother with corps/banks though. they’ll answer to a state/national office and wouldn’t deal with a freelancer/sole proprietor anyway.
as a freelancer, 90% of your business will come from networking and referrals
anyway, good luck in your endeavors!
Thank you! It so happens that one of my first clients runs a farm, but just my size. I’ve already shared some solutions with the owner, but as free advice to gauge interest.
Some farm equipment is so old, in fact, that it only runs on extremely hacked now open source (kinda) software. In fact, the whole world is rather fascinating and rather underground. If you do your research, you can really get into it.
Currently, farm software/equipment and the whole agricultural and industrial world is that the center of the Right to Repair movement moving through the US Congress, also in Europe.
You think there’s a market for something like this?
Not to be too facetious… but it’s called SMB consulting, homie.
What anyone in that industry will tell you is that it’s extremely sink or swim, and the hard part is finding reliable clients willing to pay you appropriately.
If you really wanna go that route, start by registering an LLC and putting together your shared template you wanna build from. Wouldn’t recommend going all-in until you have a few steady clients on your roster, but you can certainly dip your toes in without much headache to see if it’s something you like.
What anyone in that industry will tell you is that it’s extremely sink or swim
And there’s always someone doing it cheaper. And wrong. I got some weird and unexpected DMARC reports a while ago. A local guy has I guess one o365 license, with the domains for all his clients, with forwarding rules for all his clients to their free Gmail/ISP email. Rather a privacy issue.
Holy cow.
Yea, someone always willing to jump through hoops to save money but not understanding the cost of the risk.
“Dude, buddy, homie!”
Thanks for the explanation and the sobering advice. I don’t plan on going big, but it’s good to know what I’m going into.
I interviewed at a company that provided open source telephony hardware and service to businesses. It’s absolutely a viable business model.
Might be better standing a k8s setup and then offering to host and route the small businesses.
Have a bunch of standard services and spin them up as required for the company: db, object storage, web server, standard CMS with free templates, cache and mq.
Needs Drupal plus postgres? Two containers. They want WordPress? Add that.
Needs cache? Add them to your redis instance and charge.
Message bus? Rabbitmq
Object storage? Minio in front of everything so that you can plug it into the cheapest S3 buckets.
Main work is ingress and routing via nginx containers, but it will be cheap enough for you to host and scale as requirements change.
You build a couple of connectors for Auth and payment processing and you can charge a bit extra for that integration.
Most of that can sit in a small k8s 3 node cluster and could probably host a lot of sites with autoscaling.
I think this could be a thing, but I feel getting the word out would be the hard part.
Maybe going to small business/incubator business networking events could provide potential clients. Getting in touch with incubators in general would probably be good, as they can pass word to their clients. Colleges and universities may be another avenue of getting the word out to potential new small businesses.
Also to consider, if it’s for businesses, there would need to be data redundancy. Otherwise, I feel, it would be a nonstarter. Data recovery/access to redundancy would likely need to be automated or very easy to do, otherwise you’re probably looking at irate calls in the middle of the night.
Thanks for the advice! I’ll certainly make backups a priority.
Had another thought. If you could remote into their server could they not remote into your server?
I’m thinking this could be a good gateway trial option for clients. You set up services on your server and give them limited time access to the server to use the FOSS software. If they want, after the trial they can transfer their data. You then wipe the server to ensure their data is erased.
Also, an option I’m not sure you’d be excited about. You host everything for them and offer the service of using your server for their business needs (rather than just a trial). May be less headache in the long run (less overall hardware means less overall issues, presumably).
For the running of software on your server, I believe there are companies that do that already for the fediverse instances. May be worth looking at and seeing what they offer and for what price.
Great idea. I’d like to have remote services available, but I imagine the hardware expenses and overhead would be more expensive. Once I have some clients, I’d like to invest in a good rack.
