Phone Repair Philly
Learn More about Phone Repair Philly
When I moved to Philly back in 2015 my immediate goal was to start another repair shop so I could make some money. Cell phone repair was something I got into back in 2012 as a way to make some extra cash while building a business. I remember the days of fixing people’s cell phones in the HUB for friends and college students.
Phone Repair Philly now has 3 locations and 10 employees. We are the #1 ranked, rated, and trusted repair shop in Philadelphia. Phone Repair Philly offers cell phone repair, tablet repair and computer repair. Recently we started offering to buy and sell devices, as well as insuring and upgrading devices. It wasn’t until 2018 where Phone Repair Philly got voted best Smartphone Repair Shop and it wasn’t until 2019 where we started offering computer repairs.
Don’t get me wrong though … it hasn’t been easy. It wasn’t until 2020 that Phone Repair Philly started seeing a lot of success. We got lucky with COVID because people were stuck at home with broken devices, Apple and carrier stores were closed, and I was forced to work the shops. It’s a much longer story I can tell about getting starting and growing to over $1 mil annual revenue. Schedule a call to learn more or to start your own small business.
How did I get into phone repair?
It’s really not a long story. Back in 2011 I broke my first iPhone: the iPhone 4. At the time my friend Austin Nixon was fixing phones for a company called iCracked, that operated like Uber but for phone repair. He fixed my phone and showed me how. That summer he went to work for their HQ and I took over his operation at Penn State. He ended up never coming back so I took over for good, growing it the next two years until graduation. By the time I graduated I taught myself how to repair almost any phone and computer, how to design a website, basics of social media and digital marketing. At that point I was fixing 5 phones per day making well over $5k per month.
Fall 2013 came along and it was time for graduation. I was also busy growing Vortic Watches and running Nittany Entrepreneurs. I was as busy as could be and was also pushed to look for a job. Around this time I was job shadowing and going to career fairs. I leveraged relationships and technology to get recruited by Google. So I reverse engineered the application and interview process and a few weeks later was hired by Google. Within 6 months at Google I got bored and complacent so I started another phone repair shop, called Ann Arbor iPhone Repair.
Starting Phone Repair Philly
In the Spring of 2015 I was fired from Google. I was devastated. However, at that time I was already starting my agency. I also had Ann Arbor iPhone Repair making over $5k per month and I was still CMO of Vortic Watches. But in a few months they forcibly bought out my equity and so I had to double down to starting the agency and growing the repair company. Cell phone repair has always been there for me to make money. So I grinded and focused on business development, SEO, good customer service, grassroots marketing and more. I taught myself everything I could about digital marketing in a few months. At this point it was the end of summer 2015 and I decided to move to Philly to be closer to friends and family. I sold my equity in Vortic for $15k and AAIR for $15k, respectably.
When I got to Philly I wasted no time. I immediately found a co-working space, Venture Forth. I spent $200/mo on rent, spent $500 in tools and supplies, and $300 on marketing. $1000 all in and I started another repair company, this time Phone Repair Philly. I focused again all on marketing: website, SEO, Google, flyers, Craigslist, Marketplaces, iCracked, and everything in between. I dumped 50% of profits back into the business. In 2 months I was doing $5k per month, in 4 months $10k per month, 6 months $15k. per month. At this point I hired a manager so I could focus more on growing both Phone Repair Philly and Momentum Digital.
Growing Phone Repair Philly
So how did I go from starting with $1000 in a co-working office to 4 stores and $125k per month?
Well, I would be lying if I said it was easy. I’ve made dozens of bad mistakes: hiring the wrong people, improper training, paying too much, offering discounts, moving too fast, taking on debt, employers vs contractors, and everything in between.
When I started in the fall of 2015 it was just me, an $1000 investment, my time and knowledge, and a co-working space. I used the space as a cheap office for SEO purposes. Within months hard work was paying off as we’re ranking near the top of Google and reinvesting profits. At this point I hired a manager and outgrew the space so I opened my first retail location in Hershey’s 1st store at 935 Spring Garden. In 3 months the word spread and we kept growing. 1 year in and we were doing $20k revenue per month, as was Momentum. Things were good.
At this point I started a 2nd location in WeWork, due to them having a co-working space in Center City (more traffic and $$). Within a few months this SEO & marketing took off and we started growing to another $10k+ per month. So I then bought a 3rd store in NJ for $15k. NoLibs and Center City kept growing but NJ didn’t. In 2018 I sold that location at a loss and opened one in Midtown, that lost money too. So I got out of both of them and took the remaining money and inventory and bought a failing computer repair shop in University City. After 6 months of hard work in 2019 it finally started growing, profiting and ranking on Google. Now, collectively, after 5 years, 3 failed locations, 3 current locations, 1 location coming soon, and finally a great team … Phone Repair Philly is in a good place.
The key to our growth has been mostly due to Local SEO, which is ranking at the top of search engines like Google for various terms related to electronics or cell phone repair. People then typically call us to request a quote or come right to one of the shops. I’ve also limited my downside and liabilities by planting shops in the city in highly populated areas, but using an office instead of retail shops that would cost too much. We build up the SEO and Digital Branding before moving into a retail storefront.
So… what’s next??
Here are my plans with Phone Repair Philly over the next few months and years.
“For me phone repair has always been something that’s come easy. It was always a way to make money too. It’s reliable and has been there for me when things haven’t been going my way. It’s more than that though. Phone repair has been my test bed and my catalyst. It’s allowed to fail, to experiment, to grow, to build, to learn.
Every good entrepreneur has that first startup they’ll never forget. Phone repair is that for me. I’ve just been lucky and hard working enough to fight through the battles and failures to finally turn it into something that makes me a good reliable living. I have no intentions of massively scaling it either. In life it comes down to your goals and what you want to accomplish it. Is the risk worth the reward? What do you want to achieve? How do you want to live? I ask myself these things.”
2020 Goals
Average over $100k per month with 20%+ profit margin
Build a sales team and start B2B wholesale deals
Plan a 4th location
2021 Goals
Average over $150k per month with 22%+ profit margin
Gain 3+ large wholesale contractors
Open 4th location in Temple. Have profitable by Q2
Hire & Train at least 2+ good people
Finish Government Contract Vendor Agreement
2022 Goals
Average over $180k per month with 24%+ profit margin
Have 10+ business and government contracts
Reliable team of 15+ techs and 5+ sales & support
Build out E-commerce component to scale
2023 Goals
Average over $200k per month with 26%+ profit margin
Have 15+ business and government contracts
Open 5th location in Philly. Have profitable by Q3
2024 Goals
Average over $250k per month with 30%+ profit margin
Have 20+ business and government contracts
Sell the company
Phone Repair Philly Locations
Phone Repair Philly - Center City
1528 Walnut St. #1200 Philadelphia, PA 19123
Hours
Open Daily: 10am–6pm
Phone
(267) 433-5751
Phone Repair Philly - University City
3508 Market St. #209 Philadelphia, PA 19104
Hours
Open Daily: 10am–6pm
Phone
(267) 709-7353
Phone Repair Philly - Northern Liberties
612 N. 2nd St. Philadelphia, PA 19123
Hours
Open Daily: 10am–7pm
Phone
(267) 709-7353
Phone Repair Philly - Old City (not open yet)
325-41 Chestnut St Suite 801, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Hours
Open Daily: 10am–6pm
Phone
(267) 915-2225
Schedule A Call with Me
Learn more about how I started and grow Phone Repair Philly and my other companies by scheduling a quick 15-minute call. I’ll cover all the setbacks and things that propelled me to the next level to grow my businesses.
Schedule using the link. below or fill the form out to schedule a meeting. Thank you!