Yes I am interested in this as well. So I will start with mine (I have posted this again in a thread 1-2 month agos):
I have started my own custom electronics distribution company in November 2006. We became the exclusive distributor of Sonos and Rako Controls and Buffalo Tech in my country. Rako is a british company that manufactures wireless lighting control systems. Buffalo Tech manufactures NAS, storage drives and networking equipment.
For one and a half month I tried very hard to persuade hifi shops, computer shops, electronic "supermarkets", electricians and others to start selling and installing our products but nobody showed any interest. So I decided to start doing the installations myself with the help of subcontracted electricians. Please note that I am fortunate enough to have 2 other family businesses with over 50 employees and a privately own building and this made it more easy for me to start and more easy for the companies to trust me to distribute and sell their products. It was also more easy for me because I had an office, fax, email and a conference room to see clients. This office is also partially serving as "showroom" for our products. I am also a Mechanical Engineer.
But it has been everything BUT easy since then. In my first Sonos and lighting systems installations I was almost TREMBLING... Over the months though I became more confident and expandend slowly our brand portfolio. We gradually became the exclusive distributors of the following brands: Sonos, Rako Controls, Chief, RTI, Tannoy, Cyrus, Planar and Muxlab. The truth is we are more of exlusive dealers rather than distributors sinse we distribute very few of the above products. Being a distributor has its advantages (good margins) but on the other hand we have to carry a lot of stock - we now have around 200k of stock and meet yearly projections.
After a few months in the business I started reallising why there were not so many true custom isntallion businesses in my country. By custom istallallion I mean a company that can do advanced lighting control, AMX or Crestron, automated lifts, proper wiring, proper autocad or visio design e.t.c First you need a lot of money to invest. I would estimate around 300-400k. This may sound a lot but we live on an island and shipping times are big. It takes 1 month from Europe or 2 months from the US for something to arrive by ship. The shipping cost is also quite high so it make sense to import large quantities. For example last month we imported a whole container from Tannoy. The container's cost was 80k and the freight 2k. We also import Sonos by sea and this means by pallets. Evey pallet is around 60 bundles. This is a lot of money. You also need to invest in a nice showroom and one or two vans.
I also realised that this job requires extreme technical knowledge and be able to constantly update it. Yes, I have been reading this forum for over 4 years, have tried almost every automation software in my home and have owned and setup several home theaters... But doing it professionally.. That's another sorry...My non-sleep nights must be around a month since I started this business...
Anyway, I was stubborn enough and I faced the difficulties and by the end of our first year I completed around 250k worth of installations. I have also been AMX ACE trained, Vantage Infusion cerified and Rako trained.
We are now in the beginning of our second year and I estimate this year to do 600k. I have already booked 450k worth of projects for this year. We have 3 big projetcs coming up: this 70k home cinema, a 150k Vantage, Niles ICS and AMX loft and a Vantage and 12 Zone Sonos house. I have now two employess and I am waiting for our third one who is an AMX ACE programmer. We really need him because I have really no time to devote on programming.
I have to say this year was very hard for me and very stressful. This is not an easy job. I really do not know how you guys manage to do it. I have though zillions of times to quit...But at the end of the day its seems it is what I love to do and I am really passionate about it.
