The Computer Buzz

August 28th, 2008

Nome and Paul Van Middlesworth - owners - The Computer Factory
 

Toot Toot

We've been building, repairing, upgrading and writing about PCs since we opened The Computer Factory in 1995. We try to write about things that are both interesting and helpful to our readers and we usually take pains to avoid blowing our own horn. Self-aggrandizement violates our sense of midwestern propriety. If you do good work, customers will find you. To a large extent this has been true for us here in San Marcos.

Each year our business grows, our circle of repeat customers gets larger and our advertising budgets shrink. We never think of ourselves as being in competition with other businesses, we just do what we do, the best we can. We work with changing technology every day and take satisfaction in providing solutions and solving problems for our customers many times each day.

Last week a long time local components supplier commented to me that we had outlasted most of his best customers. It made us stop and think. He was right. Dozens of PC related businesses have come and gone over the years. Some blazed for a while like supernovae (Datel, PC Club, PC Ware, Comp USA) and then faded away. Yet we have become the largest independent PC builder and service center in San Diego County. Why is that?

We know that the PCs we build are higher in quality, performance and reliability than those from Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway and the others. We know that our service, performance and technical competence far exceeds anything available from PC makers or "Big box" stores like Fry's, Best Buy, and Circuit City, et al.

This was also true for many of the small independent PC businesses that failed. What let us succeed where so many have failed?

We didn't plan our entry into PC sales and service, it happened to us. I was nearing the end of a long career in high tech management having served as GM or COO for manufacturing divisions of several fortune 500 corporations. In 1995 an Asian conglomerate bought the corporation that employed us and left us with a warehouse full of unfinished PCs and PC components. The Chairman asked Nome and I to set up and manage a retail storefront tasked with completing and selling the PC inventory. It sounded like fun so we signed a partnership agreement and went to work. By the end of the first year we were enjoying it enough to buy our partner out.

Neither of us knew anything about running a computer store so we opted to let our customers tell us how they wanted us to run the business. We did a lot of listening. Our business was definitely "user defined" and still is.

It's true that we had some lucky breaks. We got to choose the best employees from the old company and we didn't need to worry about start-up cash flow. But the best break of all was stumbling upon the discovery that listening to our customers was better than any business plan we could have conceived.