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Owning Computer Stores in the '90s

🕑 Added 2024-03-07 03:40:30 +0000 UTC

Comments

clabretro

those were dark times for Apple!

Maggie McFee

I worked in Federal Way around 93/94* and am a computer nerd. I don't know how I never ended up in your dad's store. * - Office Depot which also sold computers, including the ever-confusing and seemingly endless line of Apple Performas (6110CD? No? 6112CD? No? 637CD? 630CDPC?

clabretro

Oh yeah, great question!

James Hannigan

Can’t wait! I’d be curious to know through the years what products he thought were groundbreaking and exciting and whether that panned out to match consumer opinion or not.

clabretro

Yeah great questions! I was also going to ask him who was supplying the OEM parts for the stuff they were building in house.

Coffee_guy

Very cool. I haven't looked through all the questions but one thing I'm really curious about is margins on systems built and sold in house. Additionally what kind of accessories or upgrades had the biggest and smallest markup.

clabretro

definitely! we'll try to go over the timeline of how things were going, when it peaked, in hindsight when he should have slowed down, etc. we have some more pictures and I might even have a brief video!

clabretro

ha I'll ask him. I remember a lot of 90s cases being like that

Callan Christensen

I'd be interested to hear him reflect on his business decisions and what wisdom he can pass on from the experience. Especially what decisions worked out, and which he wishes he could have a mulligan on. (e.g "No one could have seen this coming...", "Everyone thought xyz would be the next big thing, but it just didn't happen.") I'd also be interested to know when business "peaked" and then what led him to decide it was time to move on. I'm also really looking forward to seeing any old pictures, videos and catalog artifacts that have survived!

Liquorist

Did he find, back in the day, that the inside of Compaq PCs were needlessly sharp? I always found myself inadvertently tagging the inside of the case when I'd get cut each and every time I went into one to perform some maintenance or repairs.

clabretro

great question!

Stolkie

I would love to hear how sales of laptops compared to desktops when those slowly got more accessible 👀 Did that actually make an impact “in the field”? Also, wow, really cool 👀👀

Matt Stadler

Same year!

clabretro

I was born in 1988, so a pretty similar story!

Matt Stadler

I see a lot of great questions. I don't have more of my own. I'm a 90s kid first PC was a compaq Pentium 1 running windows 95

clabretro

good questions! bigger distributors coming along was definitely a factor, I'll be sure to get his thoughts on that

clabretro

great questions! he definitely has some "odd situation" stories to tell.

clabretro

cool to hear you were around computer building as well! great questions, I'll be sure to ask

clabretro

definitely!

Samuel Butler

Ask about how the emergence of the internet changed the computer industry through the 1990s

Alberto Güerere

This is so great I don’t know where to begin with. This backstory on your personal is on itself answering many questions about you; I have been a follower and a patron for a few months now and I can’t get enough of your videos, please keep all of it coming steady, and thank you! Now this story about your dad and his computer stores is on another level. My dad also used to build PCs for low-volume SMB customers, and that’s how I got into computers and programming which is what I have been working on for 30 years. Now we import refurb brand name units and do SSDs on them lol. Questions for Brad: how was the entrepreneurial experience from running the stores? How did the financials work or not work? How many people worked for him? Did he train the techs to do warehouse work?

Sgt. Silver

Getting slightly Mr. Robot vibes here 😂 What was the most odd situation that he can talk about in his store? If several than better! 🤣 Was there someone who had a very special configuration? What made it special? Did you just wake up one day and knew that you wanna sell computers? or did you sell something before? Cheers from Germany!

Cedric Roijakkers

I remember the days of buying beige boxes with a computer inside. Those seem to be gone. I too would like to know what happened to the business, what changed in the way we buy computers that people stopped going to these local stores for their gear? I remember going to them, selecting the parts myself from online tests and reviews (Tom's Hardware, anyone) and then taking all the stuff home in boxes and assembling the PC myself. But I can imagine most people just bought the beige box pre-assembled. So what did change? I know brands like Gateway and Dell sold ready-made PCs existed long before, so that was not it. Did people start buying online, or did the market for beige boxes just dwindle away and did people start buying laptops if they wanted a "real computer", and for all the rest use their shiny new smartphone or tablet?

clabretro

Ooooh good question about anti-virus. He was definitely a "mac sucks" type of guy back then so I'll get him talking about that too haha.

Mark

Wow, really neat - I have so many questions! In the 1990s what did he think the useful life of a typical computer would be? Did it matter what brand of computer a person bought? Were brands going out of style vs whitebox/generic builds? Was antivirus software necessary?

clabretro

Great questions! We'll definitely cover that!

Zed

Admittedly I’m curious about what exactly happened that didn’t work out haha

Zed

Question for Dad (Brad Retro): Did he foresee his operation getting as large as it did? And if he could change anything about how he handled things to possibly keep the operation going, what would that be?

clabretro

It was a franchise under a parent company called Grow Biz, they had other non-computer-related franchises as well such as Play It Again Sports.

John Kiniston

I worked in a local pc building shop briefly in the mid 90’s, I didn’t know computer renaissance was a chain, I thought they were local.

clabretro

As you'll see, my Dad is a pretty industrious man. Definitely has a drive to "do stuff." Owned computer stores for 10+ years and still somehow managed to work at Boeing as an IT Manager for a total of 30 years.

Ross Nelson

On behalf of A LOT of software developers, I'm always impressed when people get into the workforce and don't get sick of it. At least the career I no longer love pays for the cameras and lenses that bring me endless joy. 🫠

clabretro

Can definitely ask that

clabretro

I should also add he can talk at length about all that, so that'll be great haha

clabretro

Excellent questions! I'll definitely be sure to get him talking about all that!

jdotinc

Did owning/operating a computer related business change his passion for computers in either direction?

Ross Nelson

Not store performance or sales or anything, just what interested and excited him, what were some of the best and most exciting things during that span? What was the beginning of the end for those stores? Amazon killing everything else off? Internet becoming so popular that things could easily be bought online in general? Race to the bottom on margins (hi Machines!) killing profits? Something else?