Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Cardoza.
Justin, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started from my old childhood bedroom in my parent’s apartment in the Brighton Park neighborhood. After graduating Kelly High school, I knew I had to do something since no one in our family really went to college and my parents would still push us to do something so I got 2 certifications for PC repair and PC networking. I grew up painting with my father’s small painting business so he would tell me to start my own business. And after watching shows such as Shark Tank, Secret Millionaire, Undercover Boss, seeing as people such as founders, CEOs, etc, give away so much money to help employees or those in need and seeing their reactions…it made me want to be in that position one day to help others because I didn’t grow up with much watching my parents live paycheck to paycheck so I wanted to help them as well. With my certifications and no college degrees, I wanted to be able to another person to continue to prove that it doesn’t matter where you grew up, what background you have, or college experience you have, if any, that anyone can do anything they want in life as long as they set their mind to it. I personally would love to go back to my old schools and talk to the kids and show them they can also make something of themselves without being sport related necessarily. I think too many times you see professional athletes go to schools, which don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad…it will help push some kids to stick to their dreams, but I think the reality of how many kids who will make it to the pros is very low and many kids don’t want to play sports in life to make it big one day. I think they need local entrepreneurs and business owners and doctors and lawyers, teachers, etc to go to schools to really motivate the kids to show if you work hard, they too can become someone important in life and do what they love to do.
So I started repairing friends and family computers for free in my old bedroom to gain experience. I started telling others I didn’t really know that I would check their PC for free and if I can’t fix it then there’s no charge so they had nothing to lose with me checking it. After that built up, I made my first business cards and took off from there. I had people traveling from Aurora, Westmont, Frankfort, Homer Glen, even from Hammond, IN I had people coming to my bedroom location for repairs before I ever opened my first office location. After knowing people would travel so far just for my service, I knew I had what it took to build relationships with customers, and provide a service people would be willing to travel for.
I’ve always been a joking type of person so I loved joking with customers, too, making them laugh or smile, have a good time when they come to our place. Sometimes people would win raffles we ran and I’d call them up to tell them they won, but at first I would joke with them just telling them, “you called me earlier, I’m just following up with your call, what kind of service did you need…?” and so forth…they would be like, “I never called you,” but I’d stick with my story that they did, 🙂 I just love having fun with the customers because I feel like someone could be having a bad day but that little moment they have with us in our shop could change their entire day. It goes the same way with our food drive. We wanted to make a difference, to give back, to touch people’s lives in one way or another. We started a food drive the first year we opened our first location and it grew ever since, going from 133 lbs. to 289 lbs. the following year, 5-6 years later we’re doing 500-1000 lbs. every drive now. It shows our growth as well because more and more people know about us, they know about our food drives and they want to help.
We help them in return as well by offering those who donate a chance to save anywhere $5-$15 off each device serviced depending on the time of year because we increase the amount during holiday seasons. So we’re committed to sticking around here and making a difference in the community. We hope and plan to grow in the future to multiple locations and increase our chances at making a bigger impact in the Chicago area.
I think at the moment, that is what I can think of to write here.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely some of the struggles includes not having the finances to want to grow as fast as you’d like. There’s so many companies out there with tons of money they can throw at marketing and a small business like us it can be tough to really make an impact out there and get people’s attention because it has to be consistently out there, But when money is tight it makes a business owner more scared to tap into credit cards or other possible sources of funding to possibly put you into debt just trying to grow not knowing the final outcome either whether something will work or not.
Also not knowing what to say or how to say certain things in ads, because if you’re not a professional writer, someone may think “Oh, everyone is on Facebook…that will work” But if the content isn’t there, it won’t grab their attention, or won’t push sales and won’t work. You’re throwing money into something that isn’t working but you think it is just because it’s one of the largest platforms out there with so many people.
So it can be tough not knowing if your business is going go good well next week or month and if and when you will be able to pay rent and things like that so business definitely isn’t easy which I am sure that is why so many fail within the first 3-5 years. Ever since I been open at my first location, I’ve seen so many repair shops open and close over the years, I can’t even count how many because trust me, I pay attention to the competition and who’s out there and who isn’t anymore.
Please tell us about Computer Prodigies.
We offer all types of laptop, desktop repair as well as iPhone and iPad repair. Those are the top 4 services we mainly focus on, but we do offer business card design and printing and other printing. We do services such as virus removal, motherboard & LCD screen replacement on PCs, hard drive, restore of Windows operating system, data backup and recovery. We offer water damage on laptops and iPhones. We’re known for offering a completely free diagnostic as well with absolutely no obligation to go with service either. So even if we have to take apart a laptop completely, get a price, call them with the price and if they think they rather buy a new one, then we would put it ball back together as is with no fee at all. Many places will say free check-up or free diagnostic with service. So if you decline service they will try to charge you $40 or more for declining, but we’re not like that. Customers love us for that and that is one big reason why they travel all the way to us. We tell them that on the phone and they’re like, “you know what, I’ll just bring it to you then.” We’ve had customers tell us it took them 40 min to 1 hour just to get to us and it truly feels like a blessing to hear that and know God continues to bring us customers regardless of how far they are from us.
I am very proud of the reputation we created and giving back with our food drives. When you Google “Computer Prodigies” you see 4.8-5 star average reviews all over the web, over 300 on our website and sometimes I would go look at competitor’s sites and they are lucky to even have 5-10 reviews posted. Truly feels like a blessing to see that.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I am a very family oriented person so I love the barbecues with the family and playing sports with my dad. My dad is big on cooking, loves it very much so he always wants to barbecue when it’s nice out and I grew up playing catch with baseball mitts, Frisbee, catch with the softball, playing basketball, throwing the football with my dad and my brother. Always loved seeing my mom happy regardless if we didn’t have much growing up, my parents always taught us to make the most of what you have in life, keep things clean.
Pricing:
- We offer virus removal for $85 where Geek Squad may charge $150-$199 for.
- We offer iphone repair as low as $65 and up.
- And of course the free diagnostic we offer on all devices we service here
Contact Info:
- Address: 5034 S. Archer Ave.
- Website: www.ComputerProdigies.com
- Phone: 773-216-0656
- Email: computerprodigies@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/computerprodigies/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/computerprodigies/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/helpmecp
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/computer-prodigies-chicago
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
