[Method] Make money fixing shattered touchscreens on smartphones.

So I came across something the last couple weeks that could be a good money maker for someone. Pretty much everyone these days have a smartphone with a touchscreen, and alot of these people are dumb and dont buy insurance for them, and tend to get drunk and drop their phone. The result is a shattered touch screen on a $250+ smartphone.

I'm an electronic technician by day and all my friends know that so when something electronic breaks I get a phone call. Just in the last 3-4 weeks Ive gotten phone calls from like 5 different people saying they broke their phone and want me to take a look at it. Heres what I have found:

• Almost every phone (Droid, HTC incredible, iPhone) has a replacement touch screen on eBay for $15-30 bucks bucks.
• Almost all these phones have a tutorial or the net or a video on Youtube showing you exactly how to take the phone apart to do various repairs.
• If you have basic electronic knowledge this task is pretty simple and will only take less then 30 minutes to complete.

I was talking to a girl tonight who said Verison wanted over $200 to fix her iPhone. I said I would do it for the cost of parts and a case of Miller Lite and she was ecstatic. Right now I have only done this for friends and I dont charge my friends for work (except for beer), but if I really wanted to I could find all sorts of people and probably make $100 for each phone I fixed.

This isnt something I want to focus on at the moment, but I figure someone out there could benefit from it.

The steps are:

1. Find someone with a broken touchscreen on a smart phone. If you cant find anyone search craigslist or ebay for broken phones to buy, repair, then resell. Or you can even place an ad in your local paper or craigslist offering to fix broken phones.
2. Buy the replacement parts on ebay/amazon. Like I said every screen I have found has been in the $15-30 dollar price range.
3. Research on the net how to fix that exact type of phone (the hardest part is figuring out how to open some of these phones) and fix the damn thing.
4. Collect payment. I see it very easy to charge at least $100 per repair (profit of $75-80 after parts).

Hopefully this helps and is not just a drunk rambling, but if you have any questions ask away.

considered buying damaged phones of ebay and fixing a while back. Didn't as i considered it high risk as there might be other faults.
might look into repairing locally though cheers op.

hmm maybe seo a site selling repair kits with guides.

9to5destroyer said:

hmm maybe seo a site selling repair kits with guides.

Click to expand...

Thats not a bad idea, next time I fix one of these I might write a step by step guide with pictures. Wonder if people would actually buy a guide? Maybe a simple content locker would do better.

theres money to be made just look at the amount of searches for broken iphone/iphone repair. reckon a content locker would work and you could keep the website fairly simple.

alot of the websites that come up when searched are for paid repairs and everyone likes a free service.

good idea

I like this idea alot, I could get alot of trade in my home town as word spreads quickly about people who provide such services, also I've been sitting on my broken Dell Streak for about 6 months as I couldn't be bothered to replace the screen, that can act as a good case study for my new venture, thanks given!

hate bumping this old thread, but really, it's not a bad idea.

my son dropped his brand new ipod getting out of my truck (i am one of those idiots who never buys extended warranties or insurance plans for this stuff).

We were walking in the mall and there was one of those "middle of the walk-way" kiosks there who advertised fixing broke screens.

I talked to the guy, he said leavie it with him about a week and pay him $80 up front .... i did it without a second thought.

now i know how that little fucker is making a living.

so, for people who are also interested in offline business, this is certainly a valid business model that has immediate acceptance in the public.