Home IT Support (Network Focussed)

[John8]

Curious to hear if others is also tired of playing family IT man (Printers, passwords, setups, etc) but more specifically gear this towards "market research"

With a VERY broad knowledge of all things IT (I know many say this, but I like to trust that I do), I would like to focus on VLAN's, security (firewalls, WAF, Wifi SSID/Auth, VPN, etc) and Smart home setups (Home assistant so users can manage/continue on their own) but I could also help your nagging mom with her O365 password reset in Springbok.

- Is there a market for reputable (and there are MANY one-man bands, or corporates) remote specific support
- How to find the balance between "social responsibility" (not overcharging the tannie from church) but making it a sustainable business
- Remote only feasible? (This gears it towards a bigger audience but how to gain trust in a security concerned world?)
- What would be an acceptable monthly cost for "unlimited" remote IT support (Home users only)
- What would be an acceptable monthly cost for SLA bound remote SMME support (and how many hours?)
- Happy to do this on site in close proximity to my place but feel remote is more time in the day and less travel

Really want to focus on home and small business and not corporates.

Any pro's, con's, compliance considerations, comments, advise or opinions appreciated!! (Hope this is okay to post and this thread is acceptable!)

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

In my experience:
* Most people don't care. They still think of the internet as "Wi-Fi"
* Most people are so stupid, they are not aware that they need help
* People do not want to pay for anything tech-related unless it's something that boosts their ego.

 

[ctriaan]

They still think of the internet as "Wi-Fi"

My number one pet peeve of all time.

 

[repitah]

Supporting home users as a subscription fee is ... very brave. Remember, you touched it last and the washing machine stopped working after you walked past the kitchen, looking where the dangling fibre line went. Make sure you have business insurance and prepare to get blasted all over social media. That said, maybe ask a few people that have done things like dial-a-nerd (not sure if they're even around anymore, but I remember the ads many many years back). As a subscription though, look at a model like the "dail-a-lawyer" crowd that advertise so much. Tech support, like legal, is a grudge purchase.

[rant]
There are people that buy cars not knowing how to change a tyre (or gears), and estate agents that don't know how to change a light-bulb, and no interest to even search on [popular media platform]. People will forego crash safety for carplay and seatbelts in a taxi is a roaring joke.

If you can barely stomach helping select friends and family, you are going to hate the rest. I used to help work colleagues that lived fairly nearby with their kid's computer or home wifi, for no charge, though a bag of biltong now and then would be great. The problem comes in, that while you're there, they want you to fix the TV and climb in the ceiling to pull/fix the DSTV/network cable because mos it is easy for you and you know what to do (I didn't have a pro max utlra twinkle package to upgrade them to...my bad).

IT and tech is generally dumbed down to the lowest denominator. A sales drone can waffle on how you need a terabit of memory on your phone and the storage is ROM, and you "need" 8 of those. WiFi is the internet, because that is what they see. No concept that text is lighter than voice and lighter than video. "The usage app says email is 300MB of data... yah ... too much... <scrolls> .... [media app] 400 TB ... no but I must ... I NEEED IT". The average person cannot understand why a wifi repeater behind 4 concrete walls and 2 TVs is slow because it gives them 4 bars when they are on the toilet -- don't try explain gr10 physicals because sjo, now you're being mean and I didn't take physical science in school (or promptly forgot because I'll never use it).

Separation/segregation of data (VLANs) is effort. Why do I need need to put my sec-cam DVR, lights, geyser control and inverter on another network with different rules. Some person in another country/house would never mess with that for a laugh. I just want to install the ten millionth app on my phone and tap a few times and it just works.

Security is a high wall with spikes, a gun, and lots security cameras (even in rooms, so you can check on your babies) exposed to the internet. Just slap a bigger padlock on that chicken mesh gate and you're sharp. You try teach the baddies' tricks like dark-patterns and social engineering, and suddenly they're phoning the community watch to perform an exorcism on you and ban your vehicle from ever entering the area.
[/rant]

All that said, during my younger years in the service field, I had a granny that really wanted to learn how to use a computer, webcam, scanner and email so she could interact with her children/grand-children overseas -- I think every Wednesday for 2 hours and the boss charged a callout and 1 hour of fees per week. It was very rewarding, though required a lot of patience and self-evolution to get her mildly competent. I might even do a better job now with the knowledge, experience, wisdom and communication skills gained over the years.

 

[Smiggles]

Wasting your time. Most ISP routers are locked down nowadays.

 

[B-1]

 

[Went_For_Beer]

Another issue you might run into with the home users is that most of the work will be done after hours

 

[Mike Angelo]

Best advice is to run far far away...

 

[lkswan747]

 

[SauRoNZA]

Why home users?

Rather target small businesses. Much easier to sell retainers to and actually get paid as well.

 

[Sapphiron]

Curious to hear if others is also tired of playing family IT man (Printers, passwords, setups, etc) but more specifically gear this towards "market research"

With a VERY broad knowledge of all things IT (I know many say this, but I like to trust that I do), I would like to focus on VLAN's, security (firewalls, WAF, Wifi SSID/Auth, VPN, etc) and Smart home setups (Home assistant so users can manage/continue on their own) but I could also help your nagging mom with her O365 password reset in Springbok.

I started in your position 21 years ago. Still going today with a team of about 10 people.

- Is there a market for reputable (and there are MANY one-man bands, or corporates) remote specific support

Yes, we have been 90% remote, since COVID.

- How to find the balance between "social responsibility" (not overcharging the tannie from church) but making it a sustainable business

How we handle our social responsibility is we offer non-profits a 33% discount in our hourly rates and they also get access to any "spare" hours our consultants have available at no charge.

- Remote only feasible? (This gears it towards a bigger audience but how to gain trust in a security concerned world?)

Yes, hardware procurement is a bit tricky, but we have switched to advising clients what to buy and to source from a local shop, or to buy things with a onsite warranty.

- What would be an acceptable monthly cost for "unlimited" remote IT support (Home users only)

I do not think many people are willing to commit to that. I tried it about 15 years ago, got zero takers between about 25 regular home customers.

- What would be an acceptable monthly cost for SLA bound remote SMME support (and how many hours?)

How we cost our MSP business is we turn it into a cost per user model, with additions for each software package we maintain for them. We know what the target hours are, but the client does not really care, they just like the fixed cost. bigger projects are done on an hourly basis, with a upfront quote/upper estimate.

- Happy to do this on site in close proximity to my place but feel remote is more time in the day and less travel

With good RMM software and some practical hardware procurement policies its very possible.

Really want to focus on home and small business and not corporates.

Corporates usually have their own IT staff, so they will only outsource specialist stuff to senior specialists.

Any pro's, con's, compliance considerations, comments, advise or opinions appreciated!! (Hope this is okay to post and this thread is acceptable!)

not a lot of sophisticated networking and fire-walling needed these days in small business, as people don't really run on-site servers anymore. most complicated setups we do these days are some Unifi Gateways with a separate SSIDs/Vlans for guest networks, CCTV and IOT devices. Businesses do need lots of help with getting the best out of the Office 365 and Google Workspace and even their accounting software.

BTW, if you plan to do it full time, but don't want to jump straight into going on your own. We have a junior position opening up with a reasonable basic (13k pm) and 20% revenue share for all billed hours. Send me a PM if you are interested and I will send you the application job listing when we open it up. The Technical support team also do a lot of support work for our business software team, so you will be doing a wide variety of technical jobs.

 

[John8]

Supporting home users as a subscription fee is ... very brave. Remember, you touched it last and the washing machine stopped working after you walked past the kitchen, looking where the dangling fibre line went. Make sure you have business insurance and prepare to get blasted all over social media. That said, maybe ask a few people that have done things like dial-a-nerd (not sure if they're even around anymore, but I remember the ads many many years back). As a subscription though, look at a model like the "dail-a-lawyer" crowd that advertise so much. Tech support, like legal, is a grudge purchase.

[rant]
There are people that buy cars not knowing how to change a tyre (or gears), and estate agents that don't know how to change a light-bulb, and no interest to even search on [popular media platform]. People will forego crash safety for carplay and seatbelts in a taxi is a roaring joke.

If you can barely stomach helping select friends and family, you are going to hate the rest. I used to help work colleagues that lived fairly nearby with their kid's computer or home wifi, for no charge, though a bag of biltong now and then would be great. The problem comes in, that while you're there, they want you to fix the TV and climb in the ceiling to pull/fix the DSTV/network cable because mos it is easy for you and you know what to do (I didn't have a pro max utlra twinkle package to upgrade them to...my bad).

IT and tech is generally dumbed down to the lowest denominator. A sales drone can waffle on how you need a terabit of memory on your phone and the storage is ROM, and you "need" 8 of those. WiFi is the internet, because that is what they see. No concept that text is lighter than voice and lighter than video. "The usage app says email is 300MB of data... yah ... too much... <scrolls> .... [media app] 400 TB ... no but I must ... I NEEED IT". The average person cannot understand why a wifi repeater behind 4 concrete walls and 2 TVs is slow because it gives them 4 bars when they are on the toilet -- don't try explain gr10 physicals because sjo, now you're being mean and I didn't take physical science in school (or promptly forgot because I'll never use it).

Separation/segregation of data (VLANs) is effort. Why do I need need to put my sec-cam DVR, lights, geyser control and inverter on another network with different rules. Some person in another country/house would never mess with that for a laugh. I just want to install the ten millionth app on my phone and tap a few times and it just works.

Security is a high wall with spikes, a gun, and lots security cameras (even in rooms, so you can check on your babies) exposed to the internet. Just slap a bigger padlock on that chicken mesh gate and you're sharp. You try teach the baddies' tricks like dark-patterns and social engineering, and suddenly they're phoning the community watch to perform an exorcism on you and ban your vehicle from ever entering the area.
[/rant]

All that said, during my younger years in the service field, I had a granny that really wanted to learn how to use a computer, webcam, scanner and email so she could interact with her children/grand-children overseas -- I think every Wednesday for 2 hours and the boss charged a callout and 1 hour of fees per week. It was very rewarding, though required a lot of patience and self-evolution to get her mildly competent. I might even do a better job now with the knowledge, experience, wisdom and communication skills gained over the years.

the comedy and irony of this is SO valid and true - thanks!

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

Supporting home users as a subscription fee is ... very brave. Remember, you touched it last and the washing machine stopped working after you walked past the kitchen, looking where the dangling fibre line went. Make sure you have business insurance and prepare to get blasted all over social media. That said, maybe ask a few people that have done things like dial-a-nerd (not sure if they're even around anymore, but I remember the ads many many years back). As a subscription though, look at a model like the "dail-a-lawyer" crowd that advertise so much. Tech support, like legal, is a grudge purchase.

[rant]
There are people that buy cars not knowing how to change a tyre (or gears), and estate agents that don't know how to change a light-bulb, and no interest to even search on [popular media platform]. People will forego crash safety for carplay and seatbelts in a taxi is a roaring joke.

If you can barely stomach helping select friends and family, you are going to hate the rest. I used to help work colleagues that lived fairly nearby with their kid's computer or home wifi, for no charge, though a bag of biltong now and then would be great. The problem comes in, that while you're there, they want you to fix the TV and climb in the ceiling to pull/fix the DSTV/network cable because mos it is easy for you and you know what to do (I didn't have a pro max utlra twinkle package to upgrade them to...my bad).

IT and tech is generally dumbed down to the lowest denominator. A sales drone can waffle on how you need a terabit of memory on your phone and the storage is ROM, and you "need" 8 of those. WiFi is the internet, because that is what they see. No concept that text is lighter than voice and lighter than video. "The usage app says email is 300MB of data... yah ... too much... <scrolls> .... [media app] 400 TB ... no but I must ... I NEEED IT". The average person cannot understand why a wifi repeater behind 4 concrete walls and 2 TVs is slow because it gives them 4 bars when they are on the toilet -- don't try explain gr10 physicals because sjo, now you're being mean and I didn't take physical science in school (or promptly forgot because I'll never use it).

Separation/segregation of data (VLANs) is effort. Why do I need need to put my sec-cam DVR, lights, geyser control and inverter on another network with different rules. Some person in another country/house would never mess with that for a laugh. I just want to install the ten millionth app on my phone and tap a few times and it just works.

Security is a high wall with spikes, a gun, and lots security cameras (even in rooms, so you can check on your babies) exposed to the internet. Just slap a bigger padlock on that chicken mesh gate and you're sharp. You try teach the baddies' tricks like dark-patterns and social engineering, and suddenly they're phoning the community watch to perform an exorcism on you and ban your vehicle from ever entering the area.
[/rant]

All that said, during my younger years in the service field, I had a granny that really wanted to learn how to use a computer, webcam, scanner and email so she could interact with her children/grand-children overseas -- I think every Wednesday for 2 hours and the boss charged a callout and 1 hour of fees per week. It was very rewarding, though required a lot of patience and self-evolution to get her mildly competent. I might even do a better job now with the knowledge, experience, wisdom and communication skills gained over the years.

OMG This....
I come from another industry and we saw the same thing!