How is the market for custom painted PC cases?

[Pciber]

I am going to buy a used ATX case from a friend of mine.. good condition, regular ATX. My mother makes great cat drawings on ceramics, and I thought it would be a good idea to try this on a case... let her paint it nicely, then laquer it up so it keeps well, and load it with decent components.. something like a sempron 2200+, 256mb ddr, 40gb hdd.. How much do you figure it would be worth, and how well would it sell? Raw cost is ~$260 for PC parts, and ~$10 in paint/laquer... If it sells for a halfway decent cost, I would consider buying new cases, letting my mother paint it in her spair time (paying her, too), and putting a variety of parts in a computer, to match whatever a customer wanted in it.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Hmm, its kinda hard to say. I guess it'd all depend on how well it turns out looking and what kind of things you'd do with them.

 

[SkyBum]

Marketing is going to be your biggest hurdle. Many out there would gladly pay for such a system if the quality was up to par, but how to find them (and more importantly, how to convince them to part with their money)? The companies who are already established in the market are clearly spending gobs of money on marketing just to stay alive. You will need to find exposure at first on a local level and then leverage any cash you can manage from that into a larger campaign.

This is something that can be done if you have the resources and energy to pursue but anything less than your full and undivided attention will likely result in failure before you can establish a customer base and reputation. My advice would be to treat this as a hobby and not a business and thus it could grow at its own pace without needing to provide financial support for yourself. Once you make it a business, you will find that your own needs may drain its resources faster than it can replenish them. As a hobby on the other hand, any proceeds it generates can be put back into growth until such time that there are enough funds available to allow you to switch to a full time endeavor and begin to afford to pay yourself a salary.

I used this approach to start a metal art business (though I tried to go full time a bit too soon and I paid dearly for that mistake). In the end I was able to finally support myself but it is tough going to keep bills paid and have anything left over for a life.

Best of luck!