I'm not terribly entrepreneurial really - in life I have done what I enjoyed that paid my bills and parlayed that into a career that has so far worked out very well.
Some of my hobbies though - I could likely make money on the side on.
My primary skills are IP networks in all shapes and sizes - I work for a vendor on the sales side and I've worked in the industry for many different types of companies and organizations. I have a pretty broad base of experience to draw on.
To my friends, neighbors and family that boils down to 'Mike knows computers, he can fix it' which is usually true. I try very hard to keep this 'ability' on the down low and when someone who isn't 'close' asks me for help I do generally pretend to be unaware of what they need. 'Oh, sorry - I'm more of a hardware guy - you know - chips and soldier and what not.' That usually gets me out of doing anything. I do help out folks I am close to though and I feel like I'm actually pretty good at it. I can fix hardware, I can mostly manage software (Windows can be cranky) and I can work on most brands. I also love setting up awesome home networks but only when the person who wants to do it want so to spend stupid money.
They come up too - instead of spending $100 - $200 on a crappy home network I'll go over what they need to make sure they can do just about everything wirelessly that they might ever consider for a $1000 - $2000. The high price keeps folks from asking me to do anything but not always.
So I've had this thought here and there - I haven't mentioned it to the wife yet but I've considered opening up something on the side to meet these needs. The fact is might be a total bust because people come to me so they don't have to SPEND money and I'm a nice guy. But I'm wondering if I could get folks to pay me to do this stuff to fund some of my hobbies and get me back into a car I love to drive...
I think there are a few folks out there who do stuff like this - I'm interested in being shot down and told the reality... I would actually have the wife run the business side probably I'd do the 'dirty' work. It would be ours and it would help with our taxes if we had the business because then she wouldn't have to go out and get occasional part time work to justify the dependent daycare flex spending account we use (which actually will be less of an issue next year since there won't be any more daycare).
I've got guys I could get to do cable work for home wiring so I'm not interested in getting that dirty under houses (already did my time). Still - I know there are a lot of local business I might be able to do some work for as well (less boutique home networking and more standard retail stuff in that case).
It is possible on the business networking side that I actually won't be allowed to do it as it could be a conflict of interest with my company and their partners but the home stuff I'm pretty sure isn't a problem.
Whatcha think? I'm not starting this up any time soon but maybe I shouldn't waste any more time on thinking about it...