Want to start a disk wiping e-business

[anon]

It's going to be a small operation, at least for now. Won't be doing USB flash drives and memory cards since there is no way to fully wipe those yet, but I'm already pretty skilled with HDDs, SSDs and floppies, for the select few who must still use them. There aren't many companies doing this within the country as far as I could find, and they're quite expensive (100 dollars for a "special service"!). Either I'll be able to compete by setting lower prices, or there isn't a lot of demand to begin with.

Any tips?

[hellman]

off topic : i read "Want to start a dick wiping e-business"

[Sazzy]

Here's a tip: don't set prices too low from the competitors. We have lost business before solely on the fact that the client thought we were way too cheap and that could only mean the work we would have done would have been crappy in comparison. Truth is we would've probably been the same or better as the more expensive party they ended up picking.

[zora]

I have no idea what kind of demand there is for these types of services but if you're worried about not having enough customers, you could always put up a website to try to get people to ship you their drives. But I'm not 100% sure how safely some people will package the drive when they send it to you. So receiving broken hard drives is probably a big concern and you don't want that coming back and biting you in the butt in the form of bad reviews or something.

[anon]

off topic : i read "Want to start a dick wiping e-business"

Sounds like something Mihai would find useful.

http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?p=128462

Here's a tip: don't set prices too low from the competitors. We have lost business before solely on the fact that the client thought we were way too cheap and that could only mean the work we would have done would have been crappy in comparison. Truth is we would've probably been the same or better as the more expensive party they ended up picking.

Good point. I can't charge on par with the companies I've found since I'm just one person, but you are correct. Under this particular context, very low prices may even make me look like a honeypot, by attracting people with sensitive data they want to delete.

Another company demands the following for this service (prices given in Argentine pesos):

Size in GB	Standard price	Emergencies (24 hrs.)
1 to 38 GB	260	400
39 to 75 GB	360	500
76 to 115 GB	480	650
116 to 220 GB	600	800
221 to 490 GB	750	1100
491 to 950 GB	880	1400
951 GB to 1,4 TB	1000	1700
More than 1.4 TB	1200	2000

Discounts on more than 4 drives.

Getting two grand for sending the ATA Secure Erase command with HDAT2 and coming back some hours later (a 1 TB, 7200 RPM Seagate disk takes ~165 minutes) sounds pretty awesome

The following is the alpha version of my price table so far. In light of what was mentioned above, I could increase the numbers a bit - the gap for high-capacity drives is pretty big.

Size	Price
0 to 40 GB	100
41 to 80 GB	150
81 to 120 GB	200
121 to 250 GB	300
251 to 320 GB	350
321 to 500 GB	400
500 to 1000 GB	500
1000 to 1500 GB	600
> 1500 GB	700

25% surcharge for emergencies. Discounts offered on more than 3 drives.

[anon]

I have no idea what kind of demand there is for these types of services but if you're worried about not having enough customers, you could always put up a website to try to get people to ship you their drives. But I'm not 100% sure how safely some people will package the drive when they send it to you. So receiving broken hard drives is probably a big concern and you don't want that coming back and biting you in the butt in the form of bad reviews or something.

I'm going to start posting an ad in the Latin American equivalent of eBay. The only other one offering this service is misplaced and pretty hard to find, and I want to use that to my advantage! But if this does take off, some good Web presence will be a must.

How to handle drive shipment (mail vs. personal delivery vs. picking it up at the customer's place) is indeed something to think about. I'll talk it next Tuesday with a friend who volunteered to help me.

[hellman]

Sounds like something Mihai would find useful.

http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?p=128462

how the fuck do u always manage to find such old posts? i can't even find a damn PM from my inbox

[Mihai]

Sounds like something Mihai would find useful.

http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?p=128462

I heard you!

[Mihai]

Using the internet would be good for you: website, ebay etc. It should speed things up. And try doing something just as a single person for starters. For example, in Romania you can be a freelancer instead of making a one person company. This means less taxes and less paper work.

[Sazzy]

ebay is indeed a good idea. Over here, we also have a lot of small companies selling things on local second-hand websites as "new". It gives them a lot of free advertising doing it this way. I've found quite a few amazing and cheap companies this way that I now visit before going to amazon/ebay.

[anon]

how the fuck do u always manage to find such old posts? i can't even find a damn PM from my inbox

Eh, my memory works in mysterious ways. What happened on November 24th, 2009? School finished earlier. My friend had to pay his gas bill, on which the second expiration date was nearly due. We went to a nearby bank, but they didn't allow paying that particular utility, so we had to go all the way to the gas company's headquarters, hosted on a diagonal street. There were some drunkards sitting near the door. After half an hour, he was able to pay it.

What did I have for dinner yesterday? Fuck if I know...

I heard you!

You have to tell me how you did this

Using the internet would be good for you: website, ebay etc. It should speed things up. And try doing something just as a single person for starters. For example, in Romania you can be a freelancer instead of making a one person company. This means less taxes and less paper work.

Yeah, it says "business" in the thread title, but that's in a general sense. I think what I plan to do (for the time being, at least) is more of a freelance job indeed, since I'm not signed up anywhere nor paying any taxes.

[anon]

eBay post is up. And now we wait

I have a ton of stuff I want to sell, I should post it too

[anon]

Someone made a question on the post today, maybe my first customer is just around the corner

[hellman]

Someone made a question on the post today, maybe my first customer is just around the corner

We'll celebrate when u'll make your first transactioin

[anon]

We'll celebrate when u'll make your first transactioin

Damn right! Pringles and Tropicana for everyone, and if I ever have to wipe a terabyte disk, I'll buy a private jet with the money and we shall party aboard