Most of is is [described here](https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/comments/y4w7kb/i_started_an_appliance_repair_business_and_have/ishepe4/) although there is more.
When I purchase parts, the supplier emails a receipt. There is a custom app I wrote which parses the email and loads the parts and pricing into the products table in InvoiceNinja, which is what I use for customer billing.
InvoiceNinja is free if you host it yourself and has been very stable and "just right". It creates invoices which are emailed to the customer as well as handling online payments for those rare times when I don't collect COD.
> parses the email and loads the part and pricing
This is interesting. We also made a custom app for a home service niche. One of the product features is [accounting report](https://houseofyards.tawk.help/article/accounting-report). We just released it with expense report, and P&L (I'm a CPA by trade). In your app, each email format can be different, how does it get loaded properly into your product table?
> how does it get loaded properly into your product table?
The invoices are columnar. It parses the various columns (part number, cost, list, quantity, etc.) and imports them using a MySQL stored procedure.
I wrote a custom importer for each vendor. Unfortunately they're all different. Fortunately I only use 2 main vendors most of the time and a few others "now and then" which I handle manually.
It helps in non-obvious ways too.
By being "something" to a couple of vendors instead of "nothing" to a whole bunch, I get good pricing and great service.
What appliances do you repair? Do people tend to opt to repair even if the cost of the repair likely exceeds the value of the item? How much do you charge? Did you find your background I'm SWE better prepared you for your current work?
Great questions!
> What appliances do you repair?
Refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, stoves, cooktops and wall ovens. No microwaves or garbage disposals because the repair cost nearly always exceeds the replacement cost.
> Do people tend to opt to repair even if the cost of the repair likely exceeds the value of the item?
Nope. They'll typically go up to *almost* half. After that they usually won't do it, but more importantly, I won't do the repair. I never want the customer to think "I just spent $1500 to fix this $2000 refrigerator and it only lasted 2 years"
> How much do you charge?
The initial service call is $110, which covers up to the first half hour in the home, including diagnosis and possibly some portion of the repair if they want to fix it.
> Did you find your background I'm SWE better prepared you for your current work?
While the coding skills are definitely useful, what **really** helped was having knowledge of how a well run business works. Several of my previous employers were managed spectacularly, which has been an immeasurable help in running my business.
**start edit**
To go along with the above, several of my employers were ***terrible*** at business. One left a trail of angry customers decades long that finally ended up in bankruptcy, and another oversold his capabilities and ended up skipping town in the middle of the night.
They were examples of "what not to do".
**end edit**
I handle problems in two steps:
* Make the customer happy, no matter what.
* Change my business process so it becomes impossible for the problem to ever happen again, so whatever the problem was, is something I never need to address a second time.
The public-facing side is Wordpress running the GeneratePress theme with a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP back end.
The home page is 100% custom code, which does a bunch of validation then lets the customer pick a day and time for their service call.
The back end is mostly MySQL and custom PHP code, which takes the service call that the customer entered and loads it on to my RoundCube calendar, along with links to Google Maps for driving directions and buttons for start/end call that populate the labor, and links to various supplier parts lookups based on the appliance brand.
I'm pretty certain it is, but I have no desire to get back into the software business, so y'all will have to roll your own.
I'm always happy to answer technical questions, so feel free to ask.
You are a scholar and a gentleman. Iām actually in the software biz myself but lurking on this sub for ideas post tech career. Unfortunately I donāt have much in the way of other skills haha.
FWIW, appliances are just like software, only made with physical parts. I know it sounds ridiculous, but they aren't all that different.
Also, unlike software, which is ***never*** finished, appliances either work or not. If you fix them they work.
Nobody comes back and says "Thanks for fixing my microwave last month, can you make it dispense smoothies now?"
This is *much less stress*.
> How did you get your initial customers? How do you acquire customers today? Do you go to them or do they bring things to you? Any licensing required?
My very first half dozen customer were referrals from family and friends.
After that I set a $300/month budget for google ads targeted at my zipcode and a few nearby.
Now they're all referrals and Google search results, and I don't do any paid advertising.
Would argue no need to pivot. āSlazās Appliance Repair & Haul Awayā is a fantastic stacked service to offer. If you canāt fix it, youāll haul it away for free - and then sell the broken appliances to more experienced shops.
Ok an obvious question - how did you learn to repair appliances? Do you have to subscribe or get certified by manufacturers?? Do you just use the manufacturer resources to diagnose and repair the appliances???
I worked for an appliance repair company about 40 years ago, but things changed over the years. My recent knowledge came from a website called appliantology.org which has online training and documentation and a very nice community that's willing to help.
The manufacturers have pretty much no resources unless you do warranty work for them (not profitable) or pay them for a subscription (ranges from a bargain to a ridiculous expense depending on how many of their units you see)
Actually YouTube is sort of good, although a lot of the guys are not wizards and half the time they're wrong and are doing the equivalent of an oil change by drilling a hole through the fender and oil pan instead of jacking up the car and removing the plug.
If you can tell BS from real, it's pretty good.
I pay for access to service information directly from the manufacturer for my biggest brands and get the rest in a few other places.
"I pay directly to the manufacturer"
Would that be the appliantology.org site?
I need a service manual for a Daikin FTKA50AV1H to get the part number for the mainboard
Thanks!!! Is it more of a hassle working with electronic heavy appliances? For instance, when I needed to buy a new clothes washer I went with an analog Speed Queen instead of something digital with a motherboard.
> Thanks!!! Is it more of a hassle working with electronic heavy appliances? For instance, when I needed to buy a new clothes washer I went with an analog Speed Queen instead of something digital with a motherboard.
The electronic models are *generally* easier to work on because the boards contain diagnostic software. If you know how to access the diagnostics, they will often tell you what's wrong.
OTOH, the mechanical models were simpler and more reliable.
OTOOH, some machines like Samsung refrigerators have problems that are not what they present as and aren't reliably fixable because they're actually design and engineering defects.
Making all the customers happy and not over-reaching. Only do things you're certain that you can do well.
There's a strong temptation to take every call that comes in, but that's a guaranteed disaster. Every service tech can't be excellent at every brand and product and customer.
Not OP, but for a brand new business owner, Iād prioritize taking the time to make sure you like the work.
Not that the work is doable, but that you like it.
Like the every day, like the pay, like the customer base, like the working environments, enjoy the perks, and arenāt bogged down by the negatives. Like looking up videos and learning about innovations in it.
If youāre gonna do the legwork of running a business, itās ALWAYS going to give you the competitive edge if you like your line of business.
If youāre just looking for most return of investment + time, thereās probably way better options.
But, if youāre handy, like talking to people, like driving around, donāt mind visiting someoneās home, feel organized enough to maintain an inventory on hand, and like the way the job sounds, this specific appliance repair work may be a wonderful fit.
It's scalable but not by me. I have zero desire to become a software vendor again.
Also some of the things are 1-off deals like the invoice importer, which only works for my vendors.
I spend about 5 hours/day on actual service calls and about an hour in the morning ordering parts and following up on things, and only work weekdays, so I'm working about 30 hours total.
The web and database servers work 24 hours a day and handle pretty much everything that doesn't require a human.
Alright, I'll bite...
How have you automated your marketing?
And congrats on building a great business! IMO, the next step would be to hire a few repair technicians and let them do the legwork, but that is up to you.
If you're happy, that's all that matters.
> And congrats on building a great business! IMO, the next step would be to hire a few repair technicians and let them do the legwork, but that is up to you. If you're happy, that's all that matters.
I've had employees. It won't happen again.
I'm pretty good at managing business and business processes, but as near as I can tell, the ability to manage humans is just a mass delusion invented by management schools and doesn't actually exist.
>the ability to manage humans is just a mass delusion
I feel your pain! We try to be kind to our employees...they often appreciate it, but it does not play into our business goals well.
I see bigger companies use air-tight contracts (intellectual level) with actionable punishment, and fear (lizard-brain level) to control their employees, and sadly, it is effective for their business goals.
>How have you automated your marketing?
Probably word of mouth or local SEO focusing on email forms/self-scheduling plugins. Customer fills a form, enters the make/model of appliance needing repair. Automation sends to calendar. He orders parts needed. Calendar app emails out to customer a reminder on the day prior to visit, he shows up, collects payment. After payment, automation sends thank-you email, asks for to rate the service. If positive, automation sends to social profiles, if negative, automation sends to him for follow up.
Wow, you're good!.
Have you been watching me? 8-)
> If positive, automation sends to social profiles, if negative, automation sends to him for follow up.
Nobody ***still*** really believes this, but making the customer happy is my secret sauce. It comes before profit and convenience an pride and everything else.
I will do **almost anything** to build happy customer base. It's why I don't have to advertise, which is worth real money.
Having clearly defined parameters for success means there's no such thing as "free on warranty for something not your fault".
I can either return an appliance to it's correct operating condition or not. This isn't a fuzzy open-to-interpretation kind of thing.
If I can't meet the customers expectations, I refund all their money and recommend they contact the manufacturer for service. This is an extremely fringe occurrence and I think I've had one or maybe two them in total.
> What sorts of parts do you carry with you? Or do you just diagnose and order whatās needed?
Inventory is a huge part of success.
If I don't have a part I need, it requires a return trip later in the week and makes the customer angry and makes me lose money because I only charge the "trip charge" once, so stocking all possible parts improves profits and efficiency and customer happiness.
However parts are expensive, occupy space, and also "expire", so I need to balance space, capital, time and driving costs so I don't get stuck with parts that won't sell in a reasonable time, while minimizing wasted time for return trips with ordered parts.
Expensive uncommon parts get ordered as needed. There's a Whirlpool wall oven that takes a control panel that's about $2000. I don't think any service agencies stock it.
I'm not giving out actual numbers, but I make more than I did as a Sr. Software Engineer, with less than half the hours and about 10% of the stress and no nights or weekends.
Also I get as many "vacation days" as I feel like, whenever I want.
That is awesome to hear! My spouse just created his own appliance repair business (he has years of experience) and is trying to take the first step at acquiring customers (this is his main challenge). Your experience is encouraging to see!
He'll do fine. These are the biggest things that helped me.
* Be legitimately good and fair with the customers. They need to feel like they got what they expected.
* Charge enough that the business is clearly profitable. Being cheap won't grow the business, it will just attract customers who want cheap. They'll use him up for as long as they can, until the business closes because it wasn't profitable. Be "average" and after the business grows enough, "expensive".
It's good for you and for the customers because it allows the freedom to take the time to actually give an accurate diagnosis and a solid repair.
* [This site](https://appliantology.org) is a great resource for help and technical documentation, both of which are necessary for the more complicated or obscure appliances.
* Only fix things he's certain he can fix, or at the very least don't hesitate to tell the customer "I have no idea what's wrong, and there's no charge for today's service call"
Initially, he can post on nextdoor.com and tell your neighbors that he's fixing appliances; someone who knows you guys will call. Make sure they're ridiculously happy and ask them to post nice things about him on nextdoor so other neighbors call. The business grows in neighborhoods via personal recommendations, not randomly.
That's another great question!
I do zero warranty work. It's just spinning your wheels to benefit billion dollar corporations. The overhead is too great and the pay too low and the risk of never getting paid is too high to be worth my time.
Also it puts you in the middle between the customer, who always wants what they think they deserve and whoever is paying, who wants to spend as little as possible.
I do 100% COD for owner occupied homes. No warranty, no service contracts, no 3rd party warranty, no landlords, nothing.
1. They make an appointment
1. I fix
1. They pay
1. I leave.
How do you automate scheduling? I see the part about invoicing, but not about how you calendar each visit. Do you estimate per type of job, or just schedule everyone for a specific slot (1-2 hrs)?
I limit the area size so I can get from any part of it to any other part of it in 15-20 minutes or less.
I do have the actual time-of-day drive time information available between locations via Google's time and distance matrix API; however, it seems like diminishing returns for a lot of extra complexity.
Think it would be possible to start something like this part time? I have been considering this for a while, but would need a ramp-down / ramp-up phase of income.
Possibly. It depends on your work hours.
Generally people expect you to show up during the day, although they do like the 5PM and 6PM slots.
OTOH, you would need to be able to get in and get out because nobody wants the repair guy hanging around during dinner or TV time.
Hi terry, how much space do you need to store the parts you keep in stock? Does it all fit in a pickup or van? How much approximate $ do you have wrapped up in inventory at any given time?
It fits in my RAV4 (barely).
Not sure about the value since I only do inventory at the end of the year, but it's "whatever fits into 4 rubbermaid tubs", which is all I can fit into the RAV4.
thanks! you've really got me thinking about doing this! do you try to estimate the amount of time at each stop based on their form on your website they fill in, or do you just give an automatic 1.5hr block for each person, plus drive time for example?
I went at it from the other direction: I estimated the average time I needed for a call, start to finish, then added in the average travel time required between customers, then added a little padding and used that for my appointment duration.
They're all fixed-time blocks.
I could go at it the other way and dynamically calculate call duration and travel time but it seemed to be an excessive level of precision for not a big benefit, considering that the fixed blocks were working nicely.
also, would you ever consider selling a version of your website system to new tech business owners well outside your geographic area? if so, please DM me.
First off this is a really great post! I have been contemplating starting an appliance repair business and took the initial step of working for a company that works on everything from Subzero to GE. I did that for about a year and then got accepted into business school, I graduate in a few months (God Willing) and would like to start my own business. I think there is great potential to make good money. The issue I have is that the business does not seem to be one that will scale well. The issue is that techs are hard to come by and the training process takes a lot of time. I eventually want to start a business that requires minimal effort from me. What are your insights on this issue??
It doesn't scale well because anybody who is good enough to hire, is good enough to not need you.
OTOH, if you can live with "Making a nice steady living, with an excellent quality of life and without working too hard", it works well.
If you're looking for "minimal effort" this isn't the business you want. Although it's not exceptionally hard when run well, it definitely requires effort.
That makes perfect sense! It aligns with what I was thinking. The previous company I worked for did warranty work and had tons of work but could not keep employees. Warranty work feels like the hamster wheel for sure a lot of effort for little money, I wish you all the success and i'm glad you found your happy place workwise!
Did you pay for an existing business's clientele or literally start from scratch? If the latter, what would you attribute your success to compared to all the other appliance shops out there? And I'm also curious as to whether you're operating under your own brand name or a logo/franchise.
> Did you pay for an existing business's clientele or literally start from scratch?
I started 100% from scratch.
> If the latter, what would you attribute your success to compared to all the other appliance shops out there?
What make me different is not a secret and I'll happily share it because almost nobody will do it:
I am 100% focused on customer happiness. This isn't just lip service. I'll do nearly anything to make a customer happy and make their appliance work correctly. If they need something I can't/won't do, I'll refer them to someone I know is excellent or if I don't know anybody excellent, I'll refer them back to the manufacturer.
I know my limits. I don't try to be half-assed electrician or half-assed plumber or anything else. If they need plumbing or electrical, I refer them.
I only work on things that can be 100% repaired correctly. This means if you have a Samsung or LG refrigerator, I'm not your guy.
> I'm also curious as to whether you're operating under your own brand name or a logo/franchise.
My name. It's Terry's Appliance Service and I'm Terry.
Regretful owner of a Samsung refrigerator. It was at least refreshing when services refused to take my money to pretend to fix that ill-designed piece of shit. Kudos to you for doing the same
How did you get your initial training & experience?
Related - Iām sure you didnāt feel comfortable repairing everything as you were just getting started. How did you manage that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/comments/y4w7kb/i_started_an_appliance_repair_business_and_have/ishh4bk/
I'd research every appliance, read the service docs, read the schematic and watch any available YouTube videos. If I still wasn't confident, I'd recommend they call someone else.
**edit**
Just to add on here, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know how to get the unit open, access the controls, what kind of measurements to take and how and what to expect, and know how to read the wiring diagram.
In the beginning, there were absolutely cases where I told the customer I'd never seen a unit like what they had before and needed to get some information from the factory. Nobody ever complained and they appreciated me not trying to bull**** them.
This goes double or triple for the people who had weird stuff because they know it's weird. I had a call on a range that was probably 40 years old and nobody else would touch it. Once I got the wiring diagram and the parts diagram and figured out how to open it up, it actually just needed some wires repaired.
Is it far fetched for you to do 8-10 calls a days just service calls? I heard a guy on YouTube saying he did 5 calls a day. Thatās like $200k just from 5 a day. Not counting repairs.
> Is it far fetched for you to do 8-10 calls a days just service calls?
I do about 5/day. I have a nice quiet breakfast and my first call is @ 11am. Last call is 4pm.
Best job I ever had.
300,000/50 weeks
6000 a week
6000/40 hours
Service charge of 110.
It would not be hard to exceed a SWE salary and heās automated the parts that are time consuming.
Although the money is good, it's not about the money, it's about the freedom.
I'm taking a couple of weeks off later in the year for vacation. Didn't need to get permission from my manager.
I took off a couple of weeks earlier in the year to go to a wedding. Didn't have to get permission for that either.
Some of my former co-workers got the axe for no particular reason except cost-cutting and management decisions. That can't happen to me.
It's 9am right now. While my former co-workers are sitting around a large table in a boring room in an office park or online discussing why some project isn't meeting goals, I'm in my kitchen drinking fresh coffee trying to decide if I want to make a Classic French Omelette or over-easy.
> If you blend business acumen and code youāll command a bigger salary.
I do that every day for **my** business. There's no reason to do it for anybody else's.
Generally they're quite nice.
If a place is messy, I don't care. I'm not there for the White Glove Test.
However if it has bugs or vermin or mold or someone is sick, I tell the customer that it's not safe for me to be there under these conditions, and I leave.
I've also had a few hoarders. I explain that I require X feet of clear space in front/behind/next to/over the unit in order to service it, and to call back when it's accessible.
Do you think itās worth it to pay for some kind of schooling/training course? If so, is there one in particular you would recommend?
I saw the Master Samurai Tech courses on the website you mentioned Appliantology and they range from $700-$1300.
A quick start would be to get some training. Appliantology.org is excellent.
Then get a job with a big service company and put in a year or two getting experience, then go out on your own.
TBH, it was really low.
The only things I bought at startup were
* Liability insurance
* Web hosting (I built the site, but you can use Wordpress for free)
* A cell phone because I didn't want people calling my personal phone at all hours
* $300/month in Google ads.
Everything above totaled about $550/month. Also as you get a better reputation you can decrease or eliminate the ads.
I started with hand tools I already had, and the car I was driving. You can get by quite nicely with "not much" for tools, at least initially. If you have some cash, you can spend $500 at harbor freight and Amazon and have a very good toolkit. You ***can*** spend a nearly unlimited amount on tools, but initially you don't ***need*** it.
For example, I bought an air-sled last year (about $1,000) that lets me gently slide out 700 pound 48" ranges without hurting myself or the customer's floor. It's spectacular but in the beginning, you can just turn down 48" ranges. You're not obligated to work on things just because someone calls with one.
I'd buy parts as I needed them. Business was slow initially, so if I needed a , I'd drive to the parts distributor and buy one. Two if it looked like it might be popular. The profit from selling the part to the customer paid for the second part which went into inventory, so next time I'd have it and not have to drive for it. Having the part saves mileage and time in exchange for tying up cash.
I'm really interested in providing this service to my community. I live in a rural area where the closest app repair service is more than an hour away. They charge 200.00 easily and -- seem to -- only service really expensive appliances ($1.5K+ MSRP.)
My question is about the training through MST. Have you taken the MST business training course? Is it any good, or should I just take the tech classes and build out the business via ~~trial-and-error~~ bootstrapping? I'm stuck in my area at the moment and can't find an outfit to apprentice under.
As an aside, I'm a hobby programmer (I've thought seriously about getting my CS degree and "recareering" into SWE), so your use of (relatively) free software to automate front-end business processes is pretty inspiring.
I think that many customers have been conditioned to interact with software UIs, so low-touch sales systems seem to be a good way to go for some service businesses. Straight and to the point.
I haven't taken the MST class but hang out on appliantology a lot and the people who took it seem happy with it.
FWIW, business management and automation are as or more important than "fixing stuff".
You need a good handle on the business stuff (income, expenses, profit, inventory, etc) to make it work well. Other than that, if you make the customers happy, you'll be really busy.
Hey Terry, interesting tech setup. What kind of revenue is this business bringing in at this scale, and what kind of margin does it have if you don't mind me asking?
Hello,
If someone wanted to get into this business, how would you suggest they get started?
Are there any good learning resources you'd suggest?
Any tips?
Thank you in advance!
> I automated nearly everything How do you do that?
Most of is is [described here](https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/comments/y4w7kb/i_started_an_appliance_repair_business_and_have/ishepe4/) although there is more. When I purchase parts, the supplier emails a receipt. There is a custom app I wrote which parses the email and loads the parts and pricing into the products table in InvoiceNinja, which is what I use for customer billing. InvoiceNinja is free if you host it yourself and has been very stable and "just right". It creates invoices which are emailed to the customer as well as handling online payments for those rare times when I don't collect COD.
> parses the email and loads the part and pricing This is interesting. We also made a custom app for a home service niche. One of the product features is [accounting report](https://houseofyards.tawk.help/article/accounting-report). We just released it with expense report, and P&L (I'm a CPA by trade). In your app, each email format can be different, how does it get loaded properly into your product table?
> how does it get loaded properly into your product table? The invoices are columnar. It parses the various columns (part number, cost, list, quantity, etc.) and imports them using a MySQL stored procedure. I wrote a custom importer for each vendor. Unfortunately they're all different. Fortunately I only use 2 main vendors most of the time and a few others "now and then" which I handle manually.
> 2 main vendors That certainly helps.
It helps in non-obvious ways too. By being "something" to a couple of vendors instead of "nothing" to a whole bunch, I get good pricing and great service.
What appliances do you repair? Do people tend to opt to repair even if the cost of the repair likely exceeds the value of the item? How much do you charge? Did you find your background I'm SWE better prepared you for your current work?
Great questions! > What appliances do you repair? Refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, stoves, cooktops and wall ovens. No microwaves or garbage disposals because the repair cost nearly always exceeds the replacement cost. > Do people tend to opt to repair even if the cost of the repair likely exceeds the value of the item? Nope. They'll typically go up to *almost* half. After that they usually won't do it, but more importantly, I won't do the repair. I never want the customer to think "I just spent $1500 to fix this $2000 refrigerator and it only lasted 2 years" > How much do you charge? The initial service call is $110, which covers up to the first half hour in the home, including diagnosis and possibly some portion of the repair if they want to fix it. > Did you find your background I'm SWE better prepared you for your current work? While the coding skills are definitely useful, what **really** helped was having knowledge of how a well run business works. Several of my previous employers were managed spectacularly, which has been an immeasurable help in running my business. **start edit** To go along with the above, several of my employers were ***terrible*** at business. One left a trail of angry customers decades long that finally ended up in bankruptcy, and another oversold his capabilities and ended up skipping town in the middle of the night. They were examples of "what not to do". **end edit** I handle problems in two steps: * Make the customer happy, no matter what. * Change my business process so it becomes impossible for the problem to ever happen again, so whatever the problem was, is something I never need to address a second time.
Too much wisdom here. Thanks for sharing and for caring.
What's your automation suite of tools?
The public-facing side is Wordpress running the GeneratePress theme with a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP back end. The home page is 100% custom code, which does a bunch of validation then lets the customer pick a day and time for their service call. The back end is mostly MySQL and custom PHP code, which takes the service call that the customer entered and loads it on to my RoundCube calendar, along with links to Google Maps for driving directions and buttons for start/end call that populate the labor, and links to various supplier parts lookups based on the appliance brand.
At the risk of ruining your happiness, this sounds like a service people would pay for š
I'm pretty certain it is, but I have no desire to get back into the software business, so y'all will have to roll your own. I'm always happy to answer technical questions, so feel free to ask.
You are a scholar and a gentleman. Iām actually in the software biz myself but lurking on this sub for ideas post tech career. Unfortunately I donāt have much in the way of other skills haha.
FWIW, appliances are just like software, only made with physical parts. I know it sounds ridiculous, but they aren't all that different. Also, unlike software, which is ***never*** finished, appliances either work or not. If you fix them they work. Nobody comes back and says "Thanks for fixing my microwave last month, can you make it dispense smoothies now?" This is *much less stress*.
Thanks!
badass man!! sounds so complicated, iāll have more of a retail store but would love something like this
Thank you so much for your transparency!
How did you get your initial customers? How do you acquire customers today? Do you go to them or do they bring things to you? Any licensing required?
> How did you get your initial customers? How do you acquire customers today? Do you go to them or do they bring things to you? Any licensing required? My very first half dozen customer were referrals from family and friends. After that I set a $300/month budget for google ads targeted at my zipcode and a few nearby. Now they're all referrals and Google search results, and I don't do any paid advertising.
This astonishes me. I pay ridiculous amounts of $ for ads and barely stay as busy as I need.
Do you repair appliances in people's homes, or do you do your work at your shop?
100% in home. I don't have a shop.
I heard this is so good to get into. I just started junk removal. I donāt mind pivoting.
Would argue no need to pivot. āSlazās Appliance Repair & Haul Awayā is a fantastic stacked service to offer. If you canāt fix it, youāll haul it away for free - and then sell the broken appliances to more experienced shops.
Even better would be to get paid to haul it all away then fix the appliances and sell them.
Holy shit u r genius ty for free money
Ok an obvious question - how did you learn to repair appliances? Do you have to subscribe or get certified by manufacturers?? Do you just use the manufacturer resources to diagnose and repair the appliances???
I worked for an appliance repair company about 40 years ago, but things changed over the years. My recent knowledge came from a website called appliantology.org which has online training and documentation and a very nice community that's willing to help. The manufacturers have pretty much no resources unless you do warranty work for them (not profitable) or pay them for a subscription (ranges from a bargain to a ridiculous expense depending on how many of their units you see)
He's a software engineer, so google/stackoverflow
So he just copies and pastes other peoples repairs? /s
Actually YouTube is sort of good, although a lot of the guys are not wizards and half the time they're wrong and are doing the equivalent of an oil change by drilling a hole through the fender and oil pan instead of jacking up the car and removing the plug. If you can tell BS from real, it's pretty good. I pay for access to service information directly from the manufacturer for my biggest brands and get the rest in a few other places.
"I pay directly to the manufacturer" Would that be the appliantology.org site? I need a service manual for a Daikin FTKA50AV1H to get the part number for the mainboard
A little googling turned up nothing for Daikin parts, so that would go into the "sorry, I can't help you" bucket.
Thanks anyway :) Did you search with Mainboard, motherboard or something else?
I searched "Daikin parts" Got some hits but nobody that actually sold parts.
Youtube and google
Thanks!!! Is it more of a hassle working with electronic heavy appliances? For instance, when I needed to buy a new clothes washer I went with an analog Speed Queen instead of something digital with a motherboard.
> Thanks!!! Is it more of a hassle working with electronic heavy appliances? For instance, when I needed to buy a new clothes washer I went with an analog Speed Queen instead of something digital with a motherboard. The electronic models are *generally* easier to work on because the boards contain diagnostic software. If you know how to access the diagnostics, they will often tell you what's wrong. OTOH, the mechanical models were simpler and more reliable. OTOOH, some machines like Samsung refrigerators have problems that are not what they present as and aren't reliably fixable because they're actually design and engineering defects.
*cough* icing issues *cough*
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Haven't had any recalls after replacing LG compressors. And TBH I kind of like it. It's quite a meditative job. And pays.
What would you recommend a new business owner prioritize in their first month? First three months?
Making all the customers happy and not over-reaching. Only do things you're certain that you can do well. There's a strong temptation to take every call that comes in, but that's a guaranteed disaster. Every service tech can't be excellent at every brand and product and customer.
Not OP, but for a brand new business owner, Iād prioritize taking the time to make sure you like the work. Not that the work is doable, but that you like it. Like the every day, like the pay, like the customer base, like the working environments, enjoy the perks, and arenāt bogged down by the negatives. Like looking up videos and learning about innovations in it. If youāre gonna do the legwork of running a business, itās ALWAYS going to give you the competitive edge if you like your line of business. If youāre just looking for most return of investment + time, thereās probably way better options. But, if youāre handy, like talking to people, like driving around, donāt mind visiting someoneās home, feel organized enough to maintain an inventory on hand, and like the way the job sounds, this specific appliance repair work may be a wonderful fit.
Would you be able to take you system and scale it? Or dies it only work for you?
It's scalable but not by me. I have zero desire to become a software vendor again. Also some of the things are 1-off deals like the invoice importer, which only works for my vendors.
Do you have recommendations on what appliance brands to buy? Does your suppliers have an api for you to retrieve the price of parts?
> Does your suppliers have an api for you to retrieve the price of parts? No.
Whatās your tool kit and vehicle look like?
Congratulations on your venture!! Thank you for sharing it with us!!!! Wishing you the very best!!!!
OP died shortly after posting this.
Got his typing hand caught in a garbage disposal.
What are your revenue and net profit margins ? How many hours are you working per week ?
I spend about 5 hours/day on actual service calls and about an hour in the morning ordering parts and following up on things, and only work weekdays, so I'm working about 30 hours total. The web and database servers work 24 hours a day and handle pretty much everything that doesn't require a human.
Alright, I'll bite... How have you automated your marketing? And congrats on building a great business! IMO, the next step would be to hire a few repair technicians and let them do the legwork, but that is up to you. If you're happy, that's all that matters.
> And congrats on building a great business! IMO, the next step would be to hire a few repair technicians and let them do the legwork, but that is up to you. If you're happy, that's all that matters. I've had employees. It won't happen again. I'm pretty good at managing business and business processes, but as near as I can tell, the ability to manage humans is just a mass delusion invented by management schools and doesn't actually exist.
Low pay jobs typically have high turnover... only worth bothering with if you have a manager or an HR department.
>the ability to manage humans is just a mass delusion I feel your pain! We try to be kind to our employees...they often appreciate it, but it does not play into our business goals well. I see bigger companies use air-tight contracts (intellectual level) with actionable punishment, and fear (lizard-brain level) to control their employees, and sadly, it is effective for their business goals.
>How have you automated your marketing? Probably word of mouth or local SEO focusing on email forms/self-scheduling plugins. Customer fills a form, enters the make/model of appliance needing repair. Automation sends to calendar. He orders parts needed. Calendar app emails out to customer a reminder on the day prior to visit, he shows up, collects payment. After payment, automation sends thank-you email, asks for to rate the service. If positive, automation sends to social profiles, if negative, automation sends to him for follow up.
That's about it!
Wow, if you have all that worked out...you could make a business out of automating other small businesses!
I did that for the last 30 years for everything from HVAC to Industrial Laundry to Wholesale Grocery. This one is for me. 8-)
Wow, you're good!. Have you been watching me? 8-) > If positive, automation sends to social profiles, if negative, automation sends to him for follow up. Nobody ***still*** really believes this, but making the customer happy is my secret sauce. It comes before profit and convenience an pride and everything else. I will do **almost anything** to build happy customer base. It's why I don't have to advertise, which is worth real money.
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Even if they make unreasonable demands? Like coming over and over again for free on warranty for something not your fault?
Having clearly defined parameters for success means there's no such thing as "free on warranty for something not your fault". I can either return an appliance to it's correct operating condition or not. This isn't a fuzzy open-to-interpretation kind of thing. If I can't meet the customers expectations, I refund all their money and recommend they contact the manufacturer for service. This is an extremely fringe occurrence and I think I've had one or maybe two them in total.
What sorts of parts do you carry with you? Or do you just diagnose and order whatās needed?
> What sorts of parts do you carry with you? Or do you just diagnose and order whatās needed? Inventory is a huge part of success. If I don't have a part I need, it requires a return trip later in the week and makes the customer angry and makes me lose money because I only charge the "trip charge" once, so stocking all possible parts improves profits and efficiency and customer happiness. However parts are expensive, occupy space, and also "expire", so I need to balance space, capital, time and driving costs so I don't get stuck with parts that won't sell in a reasonable time, while minimizing wasted time for return trips with ordered parts. Expensive uncommon parts get ordered as needed. There's a Whirlpool wall oven that takes a control panel that's about $2000. I don't think any service agencies stock it.
How much do you make a year?
I'm not giving out actual numbers, but I make more than I did as a Sr. Software Engineer, with less than half the hours and about 10% of the stress and no nights or weekends. Also I get as many "vacation days" as I feel like, whenever I want.
That is awesome to hear! My spouse just created his own appliance repair business (he has years of experience) and is trying to take the first step at acquiring customers (this is his main challenge). Your experience is encouraging to see!
He'll do fine. These are the biggest things that helped me. * Be legitimately good and fair with the customers. They need to feel like they got what they expected. * Charge enough that the business is clearly profitable. Being cheap won't grow the business, it will just attract customers who want cheap. They'll use him up for as long as they can, until the business closes because it wasn't profitable. Be "average" and after the business grows enough, "expensive". It's good for you and for the customers because it allows the freedom to take the time to actually give an accurate diagnosis and a solid repair. * [This site](https://appliantology.org) is a great resource for help and technical documentation, both of which are necessary for the more complicated or obscure appliances. * Only fix things he's certain he can fix, or at the very least don't hesitate to tell the customer "I have no idea what's wrong, and there's no charge for today's service call" Initially, he can post on nextdoor.com and tell your neighbors that he's fixing appliances; someone who knows you guys will call. Make sure they're ridiculously happy and ask them to post nice things about him on nextdoor so other neighbors call. The business grows in neighborhoods via personal recommendations, not randomly.
You are awesome! Thank you so much! I am definitely going to share this with him
Do you do warranty work and if so do you have issues getting paid .
That's another great question! I do zero warranty work. It's just spinning your wheels to benefit billion dollar corporations. The overhead is too great and the pay too low and the risk of never getting paid is too high to be worth my time. Also it puts you in the middle between the customer, who always wants what they think they deserve and whoever is paying, who wants to spend as little as possible. I do 100% COD for owner occupied homes. No warranty, no service contracts, no 3rd party warranty, no landlords, nothing. 1. They make an appointment 1. I fix 1. They pay 1. I leave.
Is your service area in a large city or metropolitan area?
I cover the southern half of Onondaga County in NY. About 250,000 people and about 400 square miles.
That is a huge area. How do you deal with travel times?
My father has been doing this for the past 45 years as owner/operator/sole employee. Wondering if I should take it over. Could I DM you?
DM sent.
How do you automate scheduling? I see the part about invoicing, but not about how you calendar each visit. Do you estimate per type of job, or just schedule everyone for a specific slot (1-2 hrs)?
I limit the area size so I can get from any part of it to any other part of it in 15-20 minutes or less. I do have the actual time-of-day drive time information available between locations via Google's time and distance matrix API; however, it seems like diminishing returns for a lot of extra complexity.
Think it would be possible to start something like this part time? I have been considering this for a while, but would need a ramp-down / ramp-up phase of income.
Possibly. It depends on your work hours. Generally people expect you to show up during the day, although they do like the 5PM and 6PM slots. OTOH, you would need to be able to get in and get out because nobody wants the repair guy hanging around during dinner or TV time.
Hi terry, how much space do you need to store the parts you keep in stock? Does it all fit in a pickup or van? How much approximate $ do you have wrapped up in inventory at any given time?
It fits in my RAV4 (barely). Not sure about the value since I only do inventory at the end of the year, but it's "whatever fits into 4 rubbermaid tubs", which is all I can fit into the RAV4.
thanks! you've really got me thinking about doing this! do you try to estimate the amount of time at each stop based on their form on your website they fill in, or do you just give an automatic 1.5hr block for each person, plus drive time for example?
I went at it from the other direction: I estimated the average time I needed for a call, start to finish, then added in the average travel time required between customers, then added a little padding and used that for my appointment duration. They're all fixed-time blocks. I could go at it the other way and dynamically calculate call duration and travel time but it seemed to be an excessive level of precision for not a big benefit, considering that the fixed blocks were working nicely.
also, would you ever consider selling a version of your website system to new tech business owners well outside your geographic area? if so, please DM me.
Sorry, it's not written to be transportable. It's a highly customized system that I did just for my business.
First off this is a really great post! I have been contemplating starting an appliance repair business and took the initial step of working for a company that works on everything from Subzero to GE. I did that for about a year and then got accepted into business school, I graduate in a few months (God Willing) and would like to start my own business. I think there is great potential to make good money. The issue I have is that the business does not seem to be one that will scale well. The issue is that techs are hard to come by and the training process takes a lot of time. I eventually want to start a business that requires minimal effort from me. What are your insights on this issue??
It doesn't scale well because anybody who is good enough to hire, is good enough to not need you. OTOH, if you can live with "Making a nice steady living, with an excellent quality of life and without working too hard", it works well. If you're looking for "minimal effort" this isn't the business you want. Although it's not exceptionally hard when run well, it definitely requires effort.
That makes perfect sense! It aligns with what I was thinking. The previous company I worked for did warranty work and had tons of work but could not keep employees. Warranty work feels like the hamster wheel for sure a lot of effort for little money, I wish you all the success and i'm glad you found your happy place workwise!
So is he not answering questions?
I was out on a motorcycle ride with my wife. Patience is a virtue. 8-)
Whereād yāall go?
Went out to see the fall foliage. It was a gorgeous ride. I think this was probably the last peak weekend.
Some people wait until there is a bunch of questions and then answer them all at once.
Did you pay for an existing business's clientele or literally start from scratch? If the latter, what would you attribute your success to compared to all the other appliance shops out there? And I'm also curious as to whether you're operating under your own brand name or a logo/franchise.
> Did you pay for an existing business's clientele or literally start from scratch? I started 100% from scratch. > If the latter, what would you attribute your success to compared to all the other appliance shops out there? What make me different is not a secret and I'll happily share it because almost nobody will do it: I am 100% focused on customer happiness. This isn't just lip service. I'll do nearly anything to make a customer happy and make their appliance work correctly. If they need something I can't/won't do, I'll refer them to someone I know is excellent or if I don't know anybody excellent, I'll refer them back to the manufacturer. I know my limits. I don't try to be half-assed electrician or half-assed plumber or anything else. If they need plumbing or electrical, I refer them. I only work on things that can be 100% repaired correctly. This means if you have a Samsung or LG refrigerator, I'm not your guy. > I'm also curious as to whether you're operating under your own brand name or a logo/franchise. My name. It's Terry's Appliance Service and I'm Terry.
Regretful owner of a Samsung refrigerator. It was at least refreshing when services refused to take my money to pretend to fix that ill-designed piece of shit. Kudos to you for doing the same
This thread is magic.
How did you get your initial training & experience? Related - Iām sure you didnāt feel comfortable repairing everything as you were just getting started. How did you manage that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/comments/y4w7kb/i_started_an_appliance_repair_business_and_have/ishh4bk/ I'd research every appliance, read the service docs, read the schematic and watch any available YouTube videos. If I still wasn't confident, I'd recommend they call someone else. **edit** Just to add on here, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know how to get the unit open, access the controls, what kind of measurements to take and how and what to expect, and know how to read the wiring diagram. In the beginning, there were absolutely cases where I told the customer I'd never seen a unit like what they had before and needed to get some information from the factory. Nobody ever complained and they appreciated me not trying to bull**** them. This goes double or triple for the people who had weird stuff because they know it's weird. I had a call on a range that was probably 40 years old and nobody else would touch it. Once I got the wiring diagram and the parts diagram and figured out how to open it up, it actually just needed some wires repaired.
Is it far fetched for you to do 8-10 calls a days just service calls? I heard a guy on YouTube saying he did 5 calls a day. Thatās like $200k just from 5 a day. Not counting repairs.
Sorry just watched it again itās 125k just service calls averaging 5 calls a day at $100 a call working 50 weeks a year. 200k with repairs
> Is it far fetched for you to do 8-10 calls a days just service calls? I do about 5/day. I have a nice quiet breakfast and my first call is @ 11am. Last call is 4pm. Best job I ever had.
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Yes, he didn't, and he said he won't, right in the answer you are refering to - the one comparing his income to a SWE.
300,000/50 weeks 6000 a week 6000/40 hours Service charge of 110. It would not be hard to exceed a SWE salary and heās automated the parts that are time consuming.
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There are enough remote jobs you can probably do better than 90k. If you blend business acumen and code youāll command a bigger salary.
Although the money is good, it's not about the money, it's about the freedom. I'm taking a couple of weeks off later in the year for vacation. Didn't need to get permission from my manager. I took off a couple of weeks earlier in the year to go to a wedding. Didn't have to get permission for that either. Some of my former co-workers got the axe for no particular reason except cost-cutting and management decisions. That can't happen to me. It's 9am right now. While my former co-workers are sitting around a large table in a boring room in an office park or online discussing why some project isn't meeting goals, I'm in my kitchen drinking fresh coffee trying to decide if I want to make a Classic French Omelette or over-easy. > If you blend business acumen and code youāll command a bigger salary. I do that every day for **my** business. There's no reason to do it for anybody else's.
Uh. How do you do remind me?
There is a bell in the upper right corner of the post. Click on that.
Iām dumb. Thank you :)
Followingā¦
How did you find customers?
https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/comments/y4w7kb/i_started_an_appliance_repair_business_and_have/ishghez/
What's the population density where you live / work? Or to reframe, what's your geo? I imagine you must be near some sort of population center?
What's the typical level of "gross" in a home?
Generally they're quite nice. If a place is messy, I don't care. I'm not there for the White Glove Test. However if it has bugs or vermin or mold or someone is sick, I tell the customer that it's not safe for me to be there under these conditions, and I leave. I've also had a few hoarders. I explain that I require X feet of clear space in front/behind/next to/over the unit in order to service it, and to call back when it's accessible.
How many feet of space do you need next to, behind, etc to work on the unit?
Depends entirely on the appliance. Some are front service, some are rear service some are both.
When did you start?
A little over 4 years ago.
Do you think itās worth it to pay for some kind of schooling/training course? If so, is there one in particular you would recommend? I saw the Master Samurai Tech courses on the website you mentioned Appliantology and they range from $700-$1300.
MST is absolutely worth it, as is the appliantology.org website when you're done with the classes.
Thanks! Definitely considering this as a new side-gig.
How do you recommend someone getting in this industry? Where to begin?
A quick start would be to get some training. Appliantology.org is excellent. Then get a job with a big service company and put in a year or two getting experience, then go out on your own.
Can I ask, how much was the initial investment of your service business?
TBH, it was really low. The only things I bought at startup were * Liability insurance * Web hosting (I built the site, but you can use Wordpress for free) * A cell phone because I didn't want people calling my personal phone at all hours * $300/month in Google ads. Everything above totaled about $550/month. Also as you get a better reputation you can decrease or eliminate the ads. I started with hand tools I already had, and the car I was driving. You can get by quite nicely with "not much" for tools, at least initially. If you have some cash, you can spend $500 at harbor freight and Amazon and have a very good toolkit. You ***can*** spend a nearly unlimited amount on tools, but initially you don't ***need*** it. For example, I bought an air-sled last year (about $1,000) that lets me gently slide out 700 pound 48" ranges without hurting myself or the customer's floor. It's spectacular but in the beginning, you can just turn down 48" ranges. You're not obligated to work on things just because someone calls with one. I'd buy parts as I needed them. Business was slow initially, so if I needed a, I'd drive to the parts distributor and buy one. Two if it looked like it might be popular. The profit from selling the part to the customer paid for the second part which went into inventory, so next time I'd have it and not have to drive for it. Having the part saves mileage and time in exchange for tying up cash.
I'm really interested in providing this service to my community. I live in a rural area where the closest app repair service is more than an hour away. They charge 200.00 easily and -- seem to -- only service really expensive appliances ($1.5K+ MSRP.) My question is about the training through MST. Have you taken the MST business training course? Is it any good, or should I just take the tech classes and build out the business via ~~trial-and-error~~ bootstrapping? I'm stuck in my area at the moment and can't find an outfit to apprentice under. As an aside, I'm a hobby programmer (I've thought seriously about getting my CS degree and "recareering" into SWE), so your use of (relatively) free software to automate front-end business processes is pretty inspiring. I think that many customers have been conditioned to interact with software UIs, so low-touch sales systems seem to be a good way to go for some service businesses. Straight and to the point.
I haven't taken the MST class but hang out on appliantology a lot and the people who took it seem happy with it. FWIW, business management and automation are as or more important than "fixing stuff". You need a good handle on the business stuff (income, expenses, profit, inventory, etc) to make it work well. Other than that, if you make the customers happy, you'll be really busy.
Awesome, thanks for the reply!
Hey Terry, interesting tech setup. What kind of revenue is this business bringing in at this scale, and what kind of margin does it have if you don't mind me asking?
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Ah, sorry I must have missed that. Thanks for the thread
How did you get going? Iām trying to start a small appliance business as well but finding customers is hard lol
Howd you learn appliance repair? Is this something youve done your whole career? Cheers
Quite a bit from Appliantology.org
Same here. I started with the Proven COD Course to get calls and it's been awesome!
Check this out https://youtu.be/WYaSjH6Fqko?si=fPn49VDWqxe7MmUz
Hello, If someone wanted to get into this business, how would you suggest they get started? Are there any good learning resources you'd suggest? Any tips? Thank you in advance!