Hi everyone,

I am planning on starting a data recovery company, and I am having a very difficult time finding a data recovery technician. Am I not searching for the right criteria, or are they extremely rare? I have searched monster,google, craigslist etc... Any tips would be great, thanks for the help!

P.S. I am located in Arizona.

Hi.
How far...

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SHAHI
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It would be very difficult for u to find a experienced data recovery tech bcz anyone with good experience would not be looking for a job he would be running his own buisness or would be working for a data recovery company .

That is a good idea. I wish you will success. Cheer!!!

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To be quite frank - the notion of establishing a new data recovery company is probably akin to establishing a manufacturing plant for freezer units in Greenland to sell to the local inhabitants.

Personally, I feel you are not likely to succeed. Try something else - seriously. DR is a diminishing breed, and only those with the very best capabilities and streamlined business model are going to be in business in the next 18 months.


Duncan

Yep, I feel the bandwagon has been already well and truly jumped upon!

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I guess we will see, we think our experience in marketing might help us out, thanks for the heads up though....


Another thing is, does anyone know someone that wants to sell their used pc3000? I deffinatly do not want to buy the pirated version, but I am kind of in a twist, because spending 15k just to try out the waters with our new venture doesnt sound too smart of a start up business model.
Also, if anyone would be interested in a business act, where we can send the drives for diagnostics and repair to you guys for a couple weeks( we will figure out the rates, but so its fair for both sides), enough for us to get a glimpse of what we can do with the market.

Thanks for any help in advance.

No offense, I mean this in a very helpful way.... I think your chance of success is limited at best. Some businesses are tough to start. As an example, imagine starting a hospital. Assuming you had the building already, all the supplies are expensive, and you won't be able to attract any serious doctors unless if you have Millions of dollars worth of X-Ray, MRI, and other machines. It takes a lot of up-front money to make money. Also, someone who starts a Hospital should at least know something about the medical field, and not rely on hiring Doctors and Nurses for medical or business knowledge. Personally, I don't know the first thing about running a Hospital, and I'd never dream of starting one, even if I had plenty of millions to spare. I know enough to know there is SO much more to running a hospital than I know. I wouldn't know what questions to ask. I wouldn't even know what I didn't know. I'd be WAY in over my head.

If for some bizarre reason my dream was to start a hospital, the first thing I'd do is actually work in one, perhaps for many years. Work my way up, learn the ropes, and find out what it takes. Get on the board of trustees, perhaps make President. Perhaps go to school for related fields. Success requires knowledge, and knowledge requires effort and time. Short cuts lead to failure.

Maybe getting into Data Recovery isn't as difficult as starting a Hospital, but it's definitely not easy. If you have the bucks, perhaps you can talk someone on here into retiring and selling their business. If you don't, you will NEED the knowledge (You'll need the knowledge even if you buy a business, but at least you might coast a little longer). No money, no knowledge, no chance of success.

I suspect you won't listen. You're determined. That's fine. Perhaps I'll pick up an extra PC3000 or clean bench from you when you decide to move on. When that time comes, please give me a good price, and give me first crack at your tools. Remember, I was nice to you, and I tried to warn you

I completely understand where you are coming from and what you are saying.

I personally have not worked in data recovery, BUT one of my partners has for some time now, and knows alot of the ins and outs, so its not a 'blind' start. I know how the business aspect (in combination with partners knowledge) works, the only part I do not have like i said is the actual engineers. We know most of the other aspects of the business, but need engineers to do the actual recoveries. Imagine it is just like a data recovery engineer that wants to start this business, he knows how to do the DR but is not knowledgable on the business part of this field, it would be hard for him to start something of his own with other competition because he wouldnt know how to market it against the others. Well we are in the opposite boat, we know the sales and business model, but we just need to hire engineers. Hope that helps you understand our situation a little better, and if you have any more advice or even constructive critisim please do not refrain from voicing it, it will only help( so no worries in offending me, I understand).

This is the reason why I am asking for the things I am asking in my last post. I want to do a mini-test run just to be re-assured of our business model, without investing too much( one of the things I learned that is a must, not matter how determined you are of your new business ventures). But if there is absolutly any responce, we have the money to invest immediatly as well. We do not have a problem to invest time into starting the business, and money to buy the most effective tools.

Thanks again for voicing your concerns

Someone smart once said: You can't jump a chasm in two hops.

To use the hospital analogy again, it's like going through the huge expense of starting one up, getting the equipment and supplies, hiring the support staff, attracting doctors, and starting up business, just to test if your business model will work. Usually, one gets about as confident as possible in their model before spending a lot of money. This might mean copying someone else's successful business model. McDonalds took a bold move, and was very successful. The rest saw a successful business model, and copied it their way.

I suspect your business model has something to do with price. If so, you likely won't be able to simply act as a 'face', sending all recoveries to someone else. If you want to do small scale, why not put your DR partner to work? PC3000 is a bit overrated, and you can do a lot of recoveries without it.

The thing that would bother me personally, and bothers me about the kids with freeware and bootleg PC3000's, is the fact that somewhere there will be someone who will lose his business because you couldn't recover his data, and perhaps someone else could have if they had the proper equipment. Perhaps a Father will lose all his digital pictures for the past 8 years, losing the memories of his daughter and son, both of which died in a car crash. I believe that, if you advertise and put yourself out there as a DR company, you take on a certain amount of responsibility. When I go to a Doctor, I expect they went to College the required 8 years or so, did a residency, and are properly certified. Someone who worked as an orderly for 6 months, then tries to pretend they are a Doctor, will likely kill someone. It's just plain wrong.

I'd recommend doing more research, both you and your partner. You might think you're just sales, and selling is selling, but it's important to know what you're selling if you want to be effective. You might think $99 recoveries will get lots of sales, and it might, but you will quickly go out of business. It might be good to know why this will happen now, instead of later, when I'm buying your PC3000. Your partner also needs to know what he/she needs.

Another small point.... When I was an Engineer, the owner of the company hired a manager for my group. Unfortunately, this guy would have needed help changing the batteries in a remote control. I'm not joking there. He had no respect from the Engineers. How could he manage us if he didn't even know what we did? He was dead weight, a complete waste of money. All he could do is ask about a current deadline, and change it to something sooner, in essence saying 'work harder'. Fortunately, there was a manager below him, and he was good. Without him, the department would have fallen apart. If it had, I can guarantee you nobody at, or above the idiot manager level, would have known why.

Going out of business always sucks. Not even knowing why must be worse.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

Our business model has nothing to do with price, and do not expect to do it any cheaper then any other competitors. With your example of losing data that could have been recovered, that is why I would rather 'subcontract' out the work until we see that business is going... cuts alot of the costs... and sure maybe not alot of profit for the test run but thats ok, that takes time.

Well, you might just do better with a subcontractor in that case. Just be aware that knowledgeable consumers would be wary of sending it to you if you're just going to send it to someone else. There's also the time factor, and then there's communication between you, the subcontractor, and the customer. DR is rarely a neat and tidy affair. Customers all have different stories, have tried different self-recoveries, and want different things recovered.

Start with the non-physical recoveries, generate sufficient capital to acquire the physical recovery tools, and train people. It would cost you less to get some bright people with good manual dexterity trained in latest techniques than it would be to hire pros. Perhaps aspiring surgeons? This would certainly be a better job for them than most other alternatives.

Your ideal employee is a sharp engineer with passion for detail-oriented work and no business ambitions. Thankfully for employers, our wonderful educational institutions do not prepare graduates to be entrepreneurs, so you should have no problem finding them fighting for entry level positions.

Just be sure to pay well. Keep them comfortable and not looking outside the bubble of your company. Continuous training is what will keep your HR costs low.

Blazer,

My feelings on DR as a whole is that the industry is going to be thrown upside down early 2009.

The major players will go out of business, leaving the smaller companies with lower overheads to pick up the pace.

However, only the really *good* smaller companies will remain in business.

With the introduction of more capable recovery tools (mine included in the not-too-distant future) recoveries that were previously the domain of the arrogant multinationals will now be entirely possible for the smaller companies.

I also believe that for other reasons, data recovery is going to become a lot more rare than it is now, for the simple reason that people will become better educated in areas surrounding backup. I'm currently working on a strategy for realtime, off-site backup for the UK, and which will rapidly spread around the globe. It's better than anything else available at the moment.

When SSD start becoming mainstream it will be a further nail in the coffin of data recovery.

When you consider how many logical recoveries DR companies received three years ago compared with today, it's only a matter of time before some of the hardware problems with drives can be home-brew repair efforts.

I personally think you're crazy - and I am not for one second trying to "protect" my "precious" position and stamp out competition - but DR is a different world from most other businesses. I know - I've had quite a few, and DR is easily the most difficult. Not five years ago - but now.

If you do go for it, then good luck - I mean it.

But I honestly think you'd be better off sticking your finger in other pies.


Duncan