My New Company - Dara IT
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Hey Guys,
Bit of a shameless plug from me but also some good news to share.
After quite a bit of consideration, planning and soul searching. I've taken the plunge and I have started my own IT company.
I am very excited about this, It's a few days away from launching fully so just wanted to share it here with you guys, get some opinions/feedback would be very useful from those who have already been down this road.
- Website - www.DaraIT.co.uk
All the best,
BreffniEDIT:** Lot of great feedback so far.**
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I've been thinking about doing something similar.
Looks nice. I would however remove the pricing thing from the Brochure. You will just end up getting a bunch of unique situations which are more advanced and need higher pay, and clients will be expecting to pay the same basic rate all the time.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I've been thinking about doing something similar.
Looks nice. I would however remove the pricing thing from the Brochure. You will just end up getting a bunch of unique situations which are more advanced and need higher pay, and clients will be expecting to pay the same basic rate all the time.
That's why they are estimates
At the top and bottom of the page. -
You do know you are ripping off Microsoft's logo right?
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@PSX_Defector said:
You do know you are ripping off Microsoft's logo right?
I noticed that as well. but, I don't now any of the IP laws in the UK.
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@PSX_Defector Not sure how we missed that....Very obvious.
Expect a re-brand. That's a pretty unacceptable mistake.
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Apart from that, any other feedback?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I've been thinking about doing something similar.
Looks nice. I would however remove the pricing thing from the Brochure. You will just end up getting a bunch of unique situations which are more advanced and need higher pay, and clients will be expecting to pay the same basic rate all the time.
I agree, quoted pricing is often a bad thing. You so often have to adjust for specific situations.
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When I looked at the reasons for not disclosing pricing, I looked a bit broader at other industries and sectors, the trend/pattern seems to be.
For a bespoke service, it's impossible to quote outright (ala web design, graphic design, architecture)
For a commodity service, Costs should be fixed and controllable (Internet, email, Stationary printing)
Here's one article that sums up nicely why I'm looking to show-case pricing first
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-reasons-your-content-marketing-must-address-price/ -
That being said, time will simply tell if I have gambled correctly, I agree it's going against the grain of what usually happens though.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
When I looked at the reasons for not disclosing pricing, I looked a bit broader at other industries and sectors, the trend/pattern seems to be.
For a bespoke service, it's impossible to quote outright (ala web design, graphic design, architecture)
For a commodity service, Costs should be fixed and controllable (Internet, email, Stationary printing)
Here's one article that sums up nicely why I'm looking to show-case pricing first
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-reasons-your-content-marketing-must-address-price/these are the reason why we thought this. As a bespoke service, quoting pricing is dangerous.
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Not really going against the grain, tons and tons of MSP model firms go for fixed pricing. They do so by enforcing rigid standards on customers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
these are the reason why we thought this. As a bespoke service, quoting pricing is dangerous.
I agree. Keeping the bespoke items unquote able
http://darait.co.uk/special-projects/.
@scottalanmiller said:
Not really going against the grain, tons and tons of MSP model firms go for fixed pricing. They do so by enforcing rigid standards on customers.
I'm trying to have the conversation about price first and get it out of the way, then we can focus on how we add value rather than finding a lead, beginning the process and then "Oh...that much? Ok not interested"
More and more people want to find out the price of a service quickly, they don't want to dance around the traditional wait for a sales-man to sell you the moon.
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That kind of makes sense, but it seems like with a bespoke service that you either are stuck printing low prices and then surprising people with high ones or listing high prices and never getting to have the conversation of what the price should be.
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I guess I view the support as more of a commodity. Rather than bespoke, Conversely if someone wants an out of scope support package, the conversation will be had then.
Still...Can't believe we missed the Exchange logo. I guess too much time getting caught up in other areas that we lost the plot on that.
How embarrassing, I've got a stack of business cards with the logo nice and large. Imagine walking up to the Microsoft rep at Spiceworld this week with that, best troll ever.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I guess I view the support as more of a commodity. Rather than bespoke, Conversely if someone wants an out of scope support package, the conversation will be had then.
We very specifically do not reference ourselves as a MSP. We open conversations with prospective clients that we are not the cheapest per hour. Ever.
We also refuse to sell blocks of time per month or such. That will only ever come back to bite someone in the ass. Either you will lose because extra problems occurred and fall under the scope of work, or, more likely, the client will lose because you did not perform X hours of work in the month and they still paid for it.
We bill by hour period. We tell our client, there will never be a month with no work as everything needs checked occasionally, but if nothing is wrong, that will be minimal time.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I guess I view the support as more of a commodity. Rather than bespoke, Conversely if someone wants an out of scope support package, the conversation will be had then.
I think a B2B IT company shouldn't see it self as commodity, if people want commodity they go to geeksquad, staples etc. you shouldn't try to compete with them.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I guess I view the support as more of a commodity. Rather than bespoke, Conversely if someone wants an out of scope support package, the conversation will be had then.
I think a B2B IT company shouldn't see it self as commodity, if people want commodity they go to geeksquad, staples etc. you shouldn't try to compete with them.
Exactly. And... they would say the same thing about the site, right? They would say "a company providing bespoke support wouldn't publish prices because we aren't looking for GeekSquad type support". Look at it from their perspective, reading your price list makes it feel like GeekSquad is exactly your competition. So the customers you feel will understand these aren't the real prices, are the very ones that I think will avoid you because of the set prices.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I guess I view the support as more of a commodity.
Bench support (GeekSquad) IS a commodity. But IT services are not. If your goal is bench work (fixing failed drives, antivirus installs, OS installs, "bring your desktop to us") then yes, commodity it is.
If you want to offer IT advice, speak at a business lever or do non-commodity services (i.e. do IT consulting) then you can't be commodity.
The MSP model works to take IT services and move them into commodity by defining a "cookie cutter" approach and forcing businesses to adapt so that prices can be estimated accurately.
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Although I think maybe the goal is bench support, not IT consulting or MSP work. From reading the site, I did not get the impression that the goal was to provide IT services. But to directly compete against GeekSquad where all of the "unknown costs" happen on the business side and the costs from the vendor are basically set.
