Initial estimated financial outlay for your cyber café business.

Here is a summary of the initial financial outlay for your cyber café. This is a very flexible outlay. It is only a guide to what is essential for the takeoff of your café business.

1. Computers ( minimum 10 systems – fairly used ) N28,000.00 X 10 = N280,000.00. Branded systems (minimum 10 systems) N90,000.00 x 10 = N900,000.00

2. Furniture (table and chairs) for ten systems N100.000.00 TO N120,000.00

3. UPS (650w) for 10 systems at N5500.00 = N55,000.00 and UPS (1200W) for the server 1 system N15,000.00


4. Printers laserjet - N22,000.00 for black and white printing. Deskjet – N10,000.00 for colour printing.

5. Router for hotspot (for laptop customers) – N10,000.00

6. Stabilizers 2 5,000w each – N10,000

7.. Standing fans two at N9,000.00 each (Binatone) – N18,000.00

8. Air conditioning units 2 (depending on the size of the room ) N70,000.00 each – N140,000.00

9. Photocopy machine (fairly used) – N70,000.00

 10. Laminating machine, new, N6,000.00

 11. Binding machine, new, N11,000.00

12. Mtnhynet equipment N30,000.00 (outdoor unit) N24,000.00 indoor unit.

 13. MTN subscription for one month of 1Mbits – 63,750.00

14. Generator (Honder elemax – 6.5KVA) – N240,000.00

15. Networking (running of wires Ethernet cables) and configuration of the network – N40,000.00

This is just an estimate of what you may need for your cyber café and the cost. This also depends on what you want to use for your power system .

The addition of solar and inverters will drive up the cost considerably. If you want to see these added or if I have omitted anything, please comment below.

How to remotely monitor your cyber café from anywhere.

I recommend been around your café most of the time, running things yourself. But there will be times when you will have to be away from your café. Then you must hand over control to a trusted staff. However, you can monitor activities in your café remotely. There are several ways to do this. I’m going to show you how I do it.

ip camera with wifi.

Firstly, I bought an IP camera from http://www.ipmart.com  online .  

  Installed it on my server and placed the camera near the ceiling inside the café, where it has a good view of the whole cafe. Then I installed Splashtop Streamer ( downloaded it from http://www.splastop.com  ) on my server computer. I also installed Splashtop Remote ( bought it on Playstore, Google Android App Store ) on my Samsung Galaxy GT i9000. And linked the two devises ( my café server and smart phone ) over the internet through Google’s gmail.

So from my smart phone I can browse my server computer in my cyber café no matter where I am. I could be in the other side of the world. As far as I have an internet connection on my phone I will be able to access and watch what is happening in my cyber café. Cool . isn’t it.

Power supply for your cyber cafe business.

Like I said before, this is crucial for your business. Managing power supply (especially in Nigeria) could make or break your business. We depend heavily on generators. You will be using generator for about half of the time you will be open for business. That is if you are lucky. So lets say you have one generator as back up to the public power supply , Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). You may not bother with inverters and solar power, if you are using power consuming machines like photocopying machines. But if you don’t have these machines in your café, the use of inverters, batteries and solar power is highly recommended.

The solar power system is to collect solar (sun’s) energy (DC) and the inverter will convert this energy into a suitable form (AC), for use by your equipment. You may not want to invest in the solar energy thing because it is expensive. In this case, use batteries and inverters only. The battery (DC) supply will be converted by the inverter to AC for use by the café.

The idea here is to use your inverter/battery system when there is no public supply. When there is public power supply it charges the batteries. If your battery power is low, due to long outage of the public power supply, run your generator for some hours to charge the batteries for use with the inverter when the public supply is absent. 

If you decide that you want the solar power (and no generator), you may make some savings on fuel and generator maintenance. But you must be accurate in your calculations on power requirements for your cyber café. Use a professional for this task.

Also, if you are using air-conditioners, the inverter/battery/solar system may not be practicable. The power consumed by the A/C will be too much for inverter/battery combinations.

One good tip on generators is, buy original Japanese engine generator. They are more expensive but last longer and can withstand the rigors and long running hours of cyber café operations. 

Let me give an example of what a good generator can do. I bought a generator with original Japanese Honda engine when I started my café. Unfortunately, four months after, there was a dispute between the landlord of the building housing the café and PHCN. So for one month, power supply was disconnected from the building.  For that one month the generator worked from 9am to 9pm nonstop  everyday without any breakdown.

The use of uninterrupted power supply (UPS) equipment is indispensable. Use one UPS to one computer to avoid instant system shutdown. There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than having his or her  work of 45 minutes or more wiped out, because of lack of UPS. 

One important tip on maintenance of UPS is that you leave them on charge over night. That is, if there is public supply. If you have constant power supply at night times, better for you. Your UPS will last for a long time. Otherwise, be ready to be buying UPS batteries for replacement. There are actually two main troublesome components in the UPS. The circuit board and the battery. The battery will get spoiled easily if there is no regular charge on them when they are idle. While the transistors on the circuit board will break down easily if there are frequent power spikes in your café power system. These power spikes could come from Public power supply (PHCN), from your PHCN/GENERATOR change over unit, and other sources.  If it is from PHCN, most likely it’s from the transformer close to your café. If it is from inside your café then it is most likely from arcing in the change over unit.

If you are using air-conditioners, be sure to buy very good electrical equipment in the café, especially the change over unit. Buy genuine ones. It will last you a long time and save you a lot of headache.

Invest in computer and networking knowledge.

Having computer knowledge or investing in some kind of computer course is of utmost importance for your cyber café business. If you don’t want to attend a course, download networking materials online and read.  To have an idea of how importance this is to the success of your cyber café business, here is a typical scenario you will encounter frequently in a café environment. 

“ Your cyber café is jampacked with customers, they are all browsing comfortable and suddenly they can no longer access the internet. This could be caused by many things – disconnection of a cable, virus, hardware malfunction, software malfunction, ISP problem, etc. If you do not have an idea of what is going on you will be in big trouble, because your customers will be all over you in a matter of minutes. If you show any hint of not knowing what the problem is, abuses will rained on you”

And if you have a network engineer on your payroll, he or she may not be around to clear the fault immediately. You will then loose hours if not the rest of the day. It happened to me several times. I had to learn how to manage my network myself. I downloaded networking materials online and learned how computers talked with each other in a local network and how to troubleshoot problems in a local network. It is easy to learn these things , because I only learned what I needed to know to maintain my local network. I did not bother with learning the whole networking thing. After all, I was not going to sit for an exam.

Another aspect of computer knowledge that is also vital is computer repairs (hardware and software). This is not as important as the networking knowledge pointed out above. You may give out your repairs to the seller of your equipment. But always make sure you have spare computers to replace bad ones.

But if you have the knowledge, you can perform little things like formatting your hard drives, installing and uninstalling software programs, replacing memory cards, replacing keyboards and mouse, etc. This knowledge will save you a lot of money and increase the profitability of your cyber café business in the long run.

I cannot emphasize this enough. The success of your internet café business is dependent on you running it yourself. That is why you need to have this computer knowledge. No matter the person you give it to or the management style you want to use to run your business it will fail if you are not there to run it. The reason for this, is that, there are so many loop holes your staff can use to steal from you. I will get to this in details later.

To learn a bit of computer and networking skills free, checkout this website http://www.free-online-training-courses.com

What kind of staff for your cyber café business.

There are two ways you can go about this. You either employ experienced staff, who have worked in a café or business center before or you take in young people who have not yet gained admission into a tertiary institution and know how to use a computer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of staff.

The experienced staff will probably begin to steal from you as soon as you employ them. But your cyber café business will be run with minimum of headache. While the inexperienced staff will have to be taught almost everything you know about cyber café business. Things like; how to scan documents, how to resize images, how to scan for antivirus, etc. but they will not start to steal immediately they are employed.

One very important thing you must consider when employing your staff is the distance where they live to the café. Preferably , people who live very close to the café because of transportation cost.

Salaries for staff range from N7,000.00 to N10,000.00 per month. Newly employed staff are set at the lower end of the salary scale while old or exceptional staff are set at the top.

When starting your cyber café business, you need to employ as few staff as possible.  If you are conversant with computers, employ just one staff. Then as the business grows you can employ more. If you are not computer literate, then employ somebody who is and learn from that person as quickly as possible.

However, there is one aspect of your café that you will need an expert at. The maintenance of your café network. The café network simply means how the computers are interconnected to the server, router , switch and the internet. And maintaining your network is going to be your biggest headache. If you don’t handle your network properly you will lose your customers. It is one single thing that can destroy your investment in a café business.

Don’t worry. I’m going to show how I handle mine even though I’m not a network guru.

Which Internet Service Provider for your Cyber Café Business.

The cyber café business in Nigeria has changed a lot. About 3 or 4 years ago café business was only operated using satellite technology. This is an expensive technology. It is characterized by very limited bandwidth. And if you want very large bandwidth (speed), you may have to pay heavily for it. The returns you get may not cover your operating cost. Then, using satellite technology was like making money for the ISPs, because all the money you generate goes to pay your bandwidth fees. In order to make some money for your business, you end subscribing for a small bandwidth. The end result is that you have a very slow internet connection and your customers will be the worse for it.

However, the field has changed considerably with the introduction of a few technologies into the market.

Firstly, bandwidth capacities in Nigeria have increased. With the introduction of MAIN ONE CABLE and GLO-1. Main One cable is a submarine communications cable that runs from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in some west African countries.  The GLO-1 (Gloalcom 1 ) is also a submarine communications cable that runs between  Nigeria to UK. So the international capacity for internet connectivity has increased greatly in Nigeria. 

For me, I started with a satellite connection. Subscribing to a company called Iway, which operates out of Kenya but has office in Nigeria. Their service was very reliable but expensive. While I stayed with them, I was virtually making money for them. I  barely had anything left after paying my subscription fees. There were other satellite options from other companies, but I did not want to switch. I felt I could make it in spite of the subscription fees.

Then came the MTN HYCONNECT Wimax service. This came just at the right time for me. And I have been using it ever since. Unfortunately, it is not available everywhere. It is only in some cities in Nigeria. The MTN service is relative cheaper than satellite services. It is also faster, bringing fast internet connectivity to cafes and homes. The satellite services can never compete with the MTN  Hyconnect service. Just to have an idea of what I mean.

I pay N63,750.00 for a monthly subscription on MTN for a 1Mbits (125Kb/s ) bandwidth. But for Iway, I was paying N127,500.00 for a monthly subscription on a 18Kb/s bandwidth.

So if you have access to MTN HYCONNECT Wimax service grab hold of a subscription. There are lower subscriptions you can use depending on the number of computers in your cyber café and how fast you want browsing to be in your cyber café. Never use satellite unless it is the only option available.

There is a third option for subscribing to an ISP for your cyber café business. That is, using a USB modem.  This makes use of the GSM NETWORK USB MODEM. The modem is configured to work with a server that has been configured with MIKROTIK OS. The use of this system was wide spread before the coming of MTNHyconnect. I never actually used it myself. This was because of my experience with the speed of the internet service provided through these modems. I have used the MTN, ETISALAT GSM internet service and discovered that the speed drops off considerable at peak periods. A friend of mine who owns a cyber café, used this form of connectivity and vouched for it, even though he once complained that the modem gets hot and stops browsing.

Anyway, I can only recommend this to be used as a backup. So that when your main connectivity breaks down, switch to the USB modem.

A new connectivity I want to test is the ETISALAT EASY BLAZE. Their router combined with their modem to run my cyber café network.  Keep reading this blog and you will soon get all the details.

For a list of ISPs in Nigeria check out this link http://nigeriamasterweb.com/IspSites.html