So you want to start a LAN Center huh? You play PC Games with your buddies, you have the most awesome lan in town at your house, and you could make a total killing off this industry right? Your probably wrong. Starting a Lan center takes a whole lot more then being good at Call of Duty and have tons of friends that play it with you.
LAN Centers have HUGE overhead. And if you above all don’t have the money to support at the VERY least a 25 Station Lan Center for 6 months without making a profit. Then you probably don’t have what it takes to make a LAN Center work. In this day and age everyone has a PC and its getting harder and harder to sell the idea of a LAN center that you pay to attend to people. But it can be done. You have to be up with current market trends and offer something they can’t get with their Dell Inspiron at home.
LAN Centers are also huge technical endeavors so if you not at least a little bit tech savvy your going to be spending alot of money on getting someone to do it for you. I personally still spent 40K just on my network setup and I did all the installing. So if I haven’t scared you off and you still think you could do a LAN Center keep coming back and reading and I will explain how to get it started and how to deal with common problems.
-Deeds
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How much does the entire Lan Center cost to get up and running for those 6 months?
Its really not an exact number. You’ve got to calculate what all your fixed expenses will be. Eg. Electricity, ISP, Rent, Employees, Memberships(Steam Accounts) a game budget(for new titles, Insurance, Approximate Candy inventory (Cause you will sale snacks they are great revenue) advertising costs, loans. Add these up then increase then by approximately by 15% and that will give you a good figure to work off of.
Reason I say raise it by 15% because crap breaks and kids loving breaking it. And there is no reasonable way you can make a kid responsible for accidental damage to equipment. (Vandalism is another subject) You will have an income from your Center but it will be amazing if you break even in the first 3-6 months. Once you start breaking even that’s when you start expanding. In a starting business breaking even is your goal. Your first few years you don’t want to make actual “profit” you want to always show your incoming money going right back into the business.
Damn, Alright then, thanks for the answers and info, I guess I won’t be running one in the near future then.
What about knowledge/education? I understand that setting up 25-40+ computers isn’t the same as making a LAN in your garage.
Don’t lose heart. It can be done. I’ll let you in on a little secret. When I first started out I only had enough money to get me through my first 2 months. I ran the center by myself so I had no employment costs. If there’s a will there’s a way. Reason I say 6 months is because it was my 4th and 5th month business really started picking up and I could start paying back the credit cards I was using.
Alright but still, those first few months are still alot. =\.
If you’d like to discuss more follow me on twitter @startalancenter and I can discuss more in depth and you can tell me what you do and don’t have and what your idea is.
@phillip I followed you back
is this website still active? i cannot find you on twitter!
Its actually @startalancenter now, but I don’t use twitter all that much anymore I usually use the forums here at Start a lan center
Ingenius, great post. I love articles like this.