Yep, I was the first franchisee in the States. Pretty rough times back then-- they didn't have the technical support and other things that they do now. Good learning experience but at great cost!

That's the customer base to go for! No money in fixing the low-end stuff because you always run into the, "How much is a new one?" syndrome. And it's a legitimate question on the low-end stuff. You just can't charge enough to make it worthwhile to fix the cheap stuff. It's only worth repairing that stuff if the customer is going to fix it himself. That was one of the big reasons I started Fixitnow.com-- even if people with low-end appliances weren't going to be service customers, I wanted to make them parts-buying customers.