what's up ladies and gentlemen my name is Brandon and I am starting a computer shop in 2024 and I have 12 months to make it work uh if you're new here welcome if you've already been here for a while welcome you guys are awesome uh but regardless I figured I would make a formal video because I'm going to start doing a a recap near the end of every month we're already 20 days into January that means we're getting close to the end of our first month and the computer shop you know it's had its Growing Pains we just got started um getting you know the tax ID all that kind of stuff set up for international sales it's it's had its hurdles so if you like watching watching that kind of content I've I've been kind of taking you guys along for like behind the scenes like showing you what I'm doing showing you how I'm doing it all that kind of stuff uh if you like it I'm only going to be increasing it and hopefully trying to increase um the production quality too so uh the computer shop I am we're not in the computer shop by the way way if you guys don't know you can check those videos out I've already got videos in the shop this is my little home office which is just a rickety little box and I it's my own inside joke I like to just I'm just a man in a box but regardless back back to the topic at hand um yeah so I got 12 months to make this work I signed a 12-month lease and most people say starting a business let alone starting a retail business you know you don't turn a profit for two three four five years but we don't have those options ladies and gentlemen so we're going to attack this in a totally different way we're not going to stock tons of new products uh I'm definitely going more towards the used approach and more towards adding value to customers that already have existing systems obviously I will sell new systems to people but um I want to offer uh Service Repairs upgrades trade in buying out old systems selling new systems selling trade selling Parts selling basically anything in anything out and uh just to keep it super simple I'm going to be doing everything through Shopify obviously some people have pointed me in different directions to do oh oh use this one use that one but I do like the fact that Shopify I can do everything I can do my online sales and my uh point of point of sale like my in store point of sale system POS system a piece of junk system if you know what I'm saying um I can do that all wrapped up in one and I can run their their tax application to take care of all my taxes and make sure I stay on top of that because that's the thing I'm super worried about but um yeah so if you like kind of seeing all that stuff and um you you want to hang around and you've ever imagine trying to open up your own computer shop uh I'd love to have you guys and I'd love to also have your input so I know a lot of people are super critical of things I'm doing and things I'm I'm showing uh but I do want to be transparent with you guys guys uh within the last week I've gotten super behind on packing and and um and shipping out items and I've tried to reach out to each and every person um but it's it's it's tough it's definitely a struggle especially whenever you do a good price on things and um you know in the beginning it's like oh man I sold you know I got a couple orders in one two orders oh this is awesome and then you know you go to sleep and you wake up and you have 50 orders and you have to pack 50 orders and you know then it's during the holidays and all that kind of stuff and family vacations and um it it does get a little wild but I have enjoyed the ride and um being busy and being overwhelmed is almost a blessing in the beginning of uh starting a small company so everybody told me in January it's going to be super hard to sell anything you're not going to move any inventory and I've already done really good um I have been advised it's not a good good idea to like tell people final numbers um so we'll probably stay off of that but as of right now I'll I'll give it a solid we'll say seven out of 10 everything's doing pretty decent we're we're still heading in a good direction um we can make rent uh and the Shop's definitely going to stay open so that's good um now whether that's going to be the case next month I don't know so a couple things up on the the list we are planning on buying out um a mining farm so we're going to go look at that got a ton of RTX 30 series cards uh some 20 series and then uh some AMD stuff like some Polaris cards so I'm going to get all those in get them cleaned up tested get them listed onto the website so we can you know try to try to move those out but everybody's just he keeps asking me you know H how are you selling stuff how are you selling stuff um it's no secret I'm just using e eBay as my pricing structure and I'm I'm not big enough to affect any kind of Global Market or even Statewide Market um so it's not like I'm disrupting prices or anything like that uh but I'm going at eBay and going about 10% under that and that's how I'm coming up with my pricing if I can beat you know the Buy It Now lowest available price on eBay it's normally probably a pretty good price and the products have just been moving and super surprisingly I set up International uh shipping available within the last week and we've been getting a ton of international orders so I'm super excited about that um I do apologize a lot of this is just a talking head video I do have a little video at the end of this where I diagnose and fix a customer computer that gets brought in so if you do like that kind of thing that will be coming up but I just wanted to formally get my January Rec cap even though we're not at the end of January we're really close but this is the starting a computer shop January recap or you know the beginning essentially um so I I just feel like I I needed to formally get that video out there um but like I said if you guys have suggestions all that kind of stuff um I I do really appreciate it and I will be posting I know I keep saying it but I will be posting and sticking to my official hours coming up within the next couple weeks so that Way walk-ins will be a lot more easy because right now people don't know when I'm there they have to call it's kind of a hassle whereas if I have posted hours they can just come in it's no big deal um I have actually been talking to my wife a little bit and she's available to sometimes fill in or step in or maybe run up there um if something comes up and needs to be sold so I definitely have to stay on top of inventorying everything so that way if she comes up she can just be like oh this is the item punch it in point of sale get the uh you know get the card swipe it take the cash all that kind of stuff makes it super simple makes it to where we wouldn't accidentally you know the wife wouldn't accidentally sell like a 3080 for like a 3060 price or or something silly because she just doesn't know she's and she doesn't really frankly want to know but regardless um I think it'll be a fun ride and um you know I've had some people criticize it and just be like oh my God you're you know you're th throwing you know crap at a wall it's never going to work it's never going to work well at the end of it I mean if it doesn't work nothing ventured nothing gained right ladies and gentlemen so um we're just going to try to have a good time along the way and I've I've really been enjoying it so um a little bit of background about me I've been working in construction since about 2010 um I've done anywhere from anything from Land clear ing uh I do erosion control now but I used to do waterproofing for foundations and basements um grading work final grading little bit of landscaping absolutely hate landscaping hardscaping that's for the birds um you guys out there laying pavers I much respect to you I hate it um but yeah so that's kind of what I've been into for the longest time so taking a step back and being able to go into my office and sit down and mess with computers I've loved it uh I've been in and on and off with computers for years uh a lot of the guys that have been watching the channel you guys know I started mining you know years ago now back in like 2016 um and Mining crypto has done really well for me um it's enabled my family to take huge steps that I wouldn't have been able to take regard like without crypto um so um I definitely don't tell people it's bad but right now it is a little risky to get into certain things because I still have people call me up and they're like man I'm about to buy like 10 ant Miners and I'm just like are are you able can you can you float it cuz um I definitely know there's a lot of a lot of people through the last few barar runs uh that have spent money that they didn't need to or bought stuff on credit and then when it's not making money they can't pay those payments regardless I'm getting off track here um we'll talk about crypto on crypto videos but yeah for January 20 or January recap computer Shop's doing good um I do need to put some shelving in uh because I have more inventory coming in especially um I'm trying to buy inventory that has boxes that's that's like a awesome thing to have because um like graphics cards and motherboards and stuff without boxes is is a pain in the butt uh but yeah so have more inventory coming in more boxes need places to put them uh I have expressed interest uh to my landlord about switching from my location right now which is super small um it's right under 300 ft which I've already outgrown it I I can't even have all my inventory there I'm basically keeping duplicates of items back here in my garage and I have them in totes so that's like right now I think I have like nine 1080s and like seven or 8 1070s so I have one of each model at the shop and then all the duplicates are back here because there's no need to have you know 5 1080 super clocks sitting up there uh just taking up room because those boxes especially the older boxes it's crazy back in like the 10 series and uh even some of the 20 series the boxes were huge they just kept getting bigger and bigger now they've kind of shrunk it down especially like Founders Edition have gotten kind of small um um but yeah so need to get some more shelving up um definitely need to do some more inventory work uh I've I've thought about I I need to work on the website some more it's super basic I wanted to keep it clean but it almost doesn't feel not that it doesn't feel legit it's just I I don't know something feels off about the website so I need to work on the website a little bit more um and then tomorrow tomorrow I need to get caught up with all my orders um I'm going to go up and I'm planning on spending basically the entire day to get caught up I think I got another I think it's like s 70 orders left um I was up there today and got like uh was it I got 21 of them boxed up and shipped out um so as of right now we're not running any sales because I'm trying to get caught up on that and if you have an order that you put in within the last week and it hasn't shipped out that's probably why so I'm going to try to get all that box up tomorrow I don't think I'll get it into the post office or into UPS by tomorrow probably go out Monday but um yeah that's that's going to be a big goal and then I think for February I don't want to get more than a day behind on uh shipping anything that's going to be like a personal goal I'm going to set for myself so um hopefully on the February recap we have good news and um I guess I'll see you guys on that one and obviously I'll see you in between if you like all that little mumbo jumbo and behind the scenes stuff so anyway peace out see you on the next one adios