WiGoMan Blog - Tech Care (Repair, Reuse, Recycle) Industry Leader

The TECH REPAIR INDUSTRY is huge! I mean really, really big. Billions of dollars in revenue flow thru thousands of tech repair shops and independent tech repair people all over the country. But MOST people don't even know that tech repair is a thing! Sad 😞but true! You see, when my company started repairing cell phones as part of our AT&T retail business in 2006 every single customer would say, "I never knew anyone who fixed phones". Then w hen I opened my first standalone repair shop in 2010 almost everyone who came into our shop would say, "I never knew anyone who fixed phones". Well of course, that made sense, because we were one of the first companies to offer on the spot immediate cell phone repair in the country. The thing that really surprised  me was that for  ten years  we still had a lot of people coming in and saying the same thing!? INDEPENDENT RESEARCH Before I sold my repair business in 2016 I decided to do some research. I went ou...

I remember it like it was yesterday -- and at one of the thousands of tech repair shops around the country it was yesterday -- I got a call in my office that one of my good friends from church was down at the repair shop and he was super upset. My tech told me he was frantic and needed to talk to me directly. I was in a meeting with my warehouse staff but I jumped up from my desk and headed down to the shop. On the way I wondered what was wrong. Had someone in our small group been injured? Maybe one of my family members were hurt? Was it another fundraising campaign for the new church building? What could be so important??? I hugged my good friend as I met him in the shop and asked him what was wrong. With tears in his eyes he said, "I really hope you can help Rob." I thought for sure that someone had died.  He slowly lifted a beach bag and emptied four *almost* brand new iPhone's on the counter next to a couple of sea shells along with a little sand mixed-in. The ...

Ouch, you just dropped your iPhone for what seems like the millionth time. You pick it up hoping, yea praying, that once again the screen is not cracked. You turn it over and terror fills your soul because it looks like a tiny spider has crawled inside and spun a web. But it's not a spider web your iPhone screen is CRACKED - WHAT NOW? Your first inclination will be to go back to the place you purchased it from - The Apple store, AT&T, Verizon, Best Buy, T-Mobile, Target, Costco, etc. Don't! These are RETAIL stores that sell billions of dollars of goods - in the case of Apple $265 billion in annual sales just last year. There job as a company, in duty to their shareholders, is to increase sales. So what do you think is the first thing they will try to do? (hint: you're going to walk by lots of them as you walk into the store). You got it, they are going to try to get you to buy a new phone.  All these shiny new iPhone's are like kitties at the pet st...

Those in the Tech Repair Industry (aka, cell phone repair) all know that Apple has the lowest hanging fruit (get it?) in that the iPhone screen replacement is by far the number one repair in the industry. So much so that some repair companies don't even bother fixing anything else. Even more so, that sooooo many repair companies have tried to incorporate all things Apple into their names. I have often referred to our industry as the 'i' industry.  Research on the Repair Industry As a long time business person (in other words I've been around the block a time or two) I have been surprised at how little research has been done in the Tech Repair Industry and how little attention the media pays to, what I truly believe, is one of the most important up-and-coming industries on the planet. Most news stories are fluff pieces on industry entrepreneurs (which are awesome BTW!) or pieces about dudes stealing private pictures of women when they have their phones fixed...