It started with a casual conversation with my friend Stephen, while we were at Free Geek on a Wednesday afternoon.  I just finished teaching a New to Ubuntu class, and he was hanging out in the lounge.  In the middle of our conversation, I asked Stephen if he would do tech support work for me, if I did the marketing and found the customers.  He thought about it and said yes, and so our partnership was formed.

Several days passed, I invited Stephen over to my house on Sunday for a spring party with my group of friends from various parts of my life from Free Geek, Tabors Toastmasters, Portland State University, two of the elders from the Cambodian Community, and a monastic friend from the Cambodian Buddhist Temple in West Linn.  We had a lot of fun making and eating spring rolls, and I made my special spring roll sauce.

(I was disappointed I couldn’t contact my Goose Hollow Family Shelter friends, though.  We volunteer almost every Sunday together, and I never asked for their contact info.)

The idea for a business venture with Stephen simmered a bit more. Monday morning, I left Goosehollow Family Shelter, with a hangover from lack of sleep.  I sleep lightly anyway, but being an overnight host means I have responsibility and I wake up with any noise at the shelter.

As I went to PSU’s Miller Library for my morning routine of creative work, I was inspired to launch into making the business venture with Stephen become reality.

Why do smart people with heart have to suffer from lack of employment, or working for very little pay for people that lack compassion?*  Pay should be fair, not exorbitant for quality work from people who are geeks, who are passionate about learning, self taught experts in particular fields, though they have gone to school to get a certificate, but who are equally passionate about sharing their knowledge with others.

(*Why do any people need to suffer without a way to salvation?  I can only focus on one problem at a time, and right now it is to get the geeks working, and then we can help everyone.  Close to my heart is helping the Cambodian community in Portland, Oregon, who are at a real disadvantage because of the Khmer Rouge civil war.)

I felt deeply whatever form the business took, I want to make it a socially sustainable business model really meaning it at all levels, so that the employees are also owners, and the company would reinvest into the community and improve particularly on the computer literacy of disadvantaged groups of people. We will provide top level service to those that can pay top price, and in turn, help those that can’t.  Most important is to create a successful business model that could be replicated by others in different localities.  But geekki definitely has to focus and build on Stephen’s core competency, of fixing computers and training people to use computers!

Monday morning, with my hung over, I was filled with creative juices and ambition to turn the promise to Stephen into reality.  I brain stormed and used “whois” to make sure whatever  business name will have a unique domain address for both .com and .org, because I wanted to combine both for-profit and non-profit aspects.

It took only one hour to come up with the name of geekki, and 3 hrs to put the first website using WordPress, and a page listing the core vision, mission, service and pricing, contact info.  I also wanted to inject some geeky humor with references to Unix.

Any admin can assume root geek.  Right now, the two admins are Stephen and myself.  Dan and Kelly, new employee-owners, may someday get admin rights, hopefully sooner rather than later, but like any Unix system, we want to make sure they have the skills and wisdom to use root without completely mucking up the system.  Stephen and I want everyone to become true owners and contribute to the geekiness at geekki.

I believe that a person’s potentials is boundless and is only artificially limited by his/her own imagination and motivation.  Results are not just because of creativity, or random occurrences, but requires a person to work consistently hard.  As a teacher, I want to bring out people’s potentials.  As a geekki admin, I have high hopes for anyone that join Stephen and I as employee-owners.

So the big question, why should people use geekki for computer service?

We are passionate about computers, self taught experts, believe in doing quality work, are friendly, want to educate people, and charge a fair price that we can make a living wage where we can support ourselves, family, save for the future, and reinvest in the community.  $70 price point is a little low compared to Geek Squad, because we are geeks with heart, that’s the ki part.  $70 is also a little high, compared to the nephew or friend that offers the occasional free tech support.  But I think there’s room for us, because we are like the the nephew or friend, but we are professionals and can be relied upon, with warranty to back up our work.