Post: #26

YMG do you have any of insight about getting a job at a VC firm in Singapore?

Post: #27

(12-16-2013 01:24 PM)DoctaWho Wrote:  YMG do you have any of insight about getting a job at a VC firm in Singapore?

No, I don't know how to get hired at a Singaporean VC.

I also don't know why you would want to. It's mostly comprised of dumb money Singaporeans with government cash to spend. I don't think it's a good career move to get into VC unless you are at the end of a long career in entrepreneurship+investments.

Post: #28

I don't plan on making a thread on my business until it's more stable (2 years from now), but right now I repair tech.

Eventually I'd like to go into consulting.

I'll give some money makers for those of you out there that like to repair and earn money.

Reballing- Most Hardware is soldered with that shitty lead free hippy crap, no no no, what you want is LEAD solder, LEAD solder is great for repairing boards. Read up on it online at engineering forums, you'll see them support Lead solder, especially the older techies. Basically you heat up the motherboard to a certain temp, and you pull the CPU or GPU that's developed cold/cracked joints, and you "reball" it with new lead solder balls. Special equipment is needed to go into this. This is how you fix the "Red Rings of Death" and the "Yellow Light of Death" on the consoles. I guarantee the new systems that just came out will have this problem eventually, so the potential money that can be earned will always be there. I've seen some half assed low lifes only offer "reflows", but that does not fix the root of the problem, Reflows do not last long because you're reusing the old solder. So Reballing >Reflow

Tools Needed- Something to see the joints with (expensive camera stuff), Reballing Station, Heating Station, Flux, Tracing Pads, Soldering balls, lighting
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Phone/Tablet repair- especially anything to do with "Apple"-
I come across many clients who somehow break their idevice, usually the digitizer which is easy to replace. (Buy a case for your phone, take care of your stuff, common sense folks)

Again, special tools are needed, but there's a lot of money to be made from this. People are terrified of opening their devices for whatever reason, but I kid you not it's easy once you have the tools.

I've seen some people who would rather buy a new device rather that get it fixed, this should be your target customers.

Tools: Digitizers on hand, Digital Mulitmeter (Fused), Microtools, tools in general,practice
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Cord repair-/Laptop Chargers, Stereo Amps, Preamps, headphones, anything to do with wiring.

Many patrons break their charging cables for whatever device it's used for. For Laptop Chargers, if the light is showing green on the brick but you have no charge, then the cable from the Brick to the laptop has most likely been broken somewhere. What I use to fix that is the same gauge of wire, maybe a PC Power cord, and just resolder that to the brick. (The old power tip is probably still good, just strip the sheathing to expose the soldering points) You'll need Soldering equipment of course. Same thing for USB wires of any kind, just need the wire layout (-5 v, +5v, -D, +D, G).

Xbox Cables have that bulge at the end, honestly I'd just resolder new wire from the board in that to the unsheathed USB tip.

Unbalanced headphones, another easy fix. doesn't matter if the entire cables been ripped as long as you have the headphones themselves and the drivers intact. Just need to resolder new wires and/or a jack to the drivers. Wire layout of course is bare copper=ground, red=right, white=left, that's usually how it's coded. There's people who's only make money soldering new wiring to headphones, and I'm talking $100-$3000+ Headphones being soldered with very expensive wire that can easily go into the hundreds for mere feets worth. If you don't believe me then check out "headfi.org" and see what the companies on there charge.



You can take two faulty controllers and make one good working one from parts of both, sometimes the controllers will be different models though. Had this happen when I opened up some Dualshock and one of the sticks had one more extra joint on it.


Tools, Soldering Iron(get the Hakko station if you can, adjustable temp.), Desoldering Wick or Iron, Flux, Soldering Iron cleaner (Hakko makes a good one), LEAD rosin core solder,
60%tin/40%lead should do just fine for most applications, Heatshrink multiple sizes, Electrical Tape-good brand, multiple gauges of copper wire. Wire stripper, pliers, wire cutter, scissors, lighting, "helping hands with magnifier"
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Computers of course- Laptops or Desktops, both easy to fix for the problems that the average user has.
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T.V.s, need some practice with this, but it's not so bad with practice.

On the older RPTV CRT's, sometimes the convergence will go wonky, the cause is bad convergence chips which are easy to replace.

Sometimes older non HD CRT's get too dark and it'll be full brightness from the menu, well you'd need to open the TV and adjust some knobs or potentiometers that should be near the cord that goes to the yolk, just adjust it to get the picture brighter. Bleeding colors? Too much Red/Green/Blue? Need to adjust a "pot" (potentiometer) somewhere until the bleeds gone. If that doesn't work then you'll have to adjust the "rings" on the base of the CRT. Some TVs can adjust this in the advance service menu.

Need tools for this, some pots aren't insulated so insulated tools are needed.
Oh man there's so much you can fix once you start fixing TV's, Arcade machines for one. Those older CRT arcades have multiple problems as they age, especially if the owner took poor care of it. Broken traces, burnt caps/resistors/chips, you'll see it all.

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I can't think of much more at the moment as it's late and I'm tired, I've forgotten to write a lot, but once you repair tech you find out what's profitable or not.

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Oh and you'll want something to disharge capacitors, because some of the big ones can be fatal. Connect a grounded wire to some gator clips and connect that to insulated gripped flathead, short the cap, and then you'll be safe from any shock after that.
Short it more than once to be safe.

Post: #29

Some excellent advice and insight in this thread.

I have multiple streams of income. Never rely on just one. Among them are:

1. I own a set of duplex townhouses. Got VERY lucky on this one due to a foreclosure auction and a freak traffic accident.

2. Two antique booths. The thing about antiques is that you MUST know what the hell you're doing. I've found very rare Depression era glassware in booths right next to mine that were priced 1/10th of their value. Oddly these damn booths take more of my time than the rental property. Unless I find a really rare item, I no longer even use FeeBay.

3. Amazon Associates. Not a huge income, but it is another stream adding to the cash flow.

4. I've cashed out of all stocks. Been trading since I was 18. (None of that "I made $60,000 in 20 seconds" day-trading crap. Just plain old buying, holding, selling.)

5. Part owner in several small businesses.

Some of these were built over a lifetime. You have to look and WORK for the opportunities. Last summer, I was annoyed at how freaking many mosquitoes were swarming around me every time I went out to grill. I went to the homeowner's association meeting and found that just about everyone was having the same problem. So I asked the group if I could secure a good discount on a local pest company's full mosquito treatment, would they individually pay for the service? They said yes.

In the end, I got the local company to not only give each homeowner (73 of them) a 25% discount, but secured a free treatment for my yard AND a "finder's fee." I'm going to try the same thing with some landscaping services, and maybe other homeowner associations.

Opportunity exists everywhere, but you are going to have to ignore about 10,000 doubts and fears that will immediately spring to your mind or will be thrown at you by naysayers.

Post: #30

(12-17-2013 11:07 AM)Baphomet Wrote:  Opportunity exists everywhere, but you are going to have to ignore about 10,000 doubts and fears that will immediately spring to your mind or will be thrown at you by naysayers.

This needs to recited by every entrepreneur.

It's amazing how many people are all too willing to bring up holes is my business ideas within 30 seconds of hearing what I am doing. They preach about them like they're Steve Jobs or some shit and the thirty seconds of reflection they did outweighs my months of research and testing.

I rarely discuss business with people outside of my management group for that reason alone.

Execute and don't listen to anything but results.