Steps in setting up Cyber café

Internet cafes act as entrance point to the communication highway called the internet. Customers vary from students who need assistance for their research activities to professionals who travel and need access to the internet, and anyone else wishing to explore the internet.
Outlined below are 10 steps and process of setting up you own internet café.

Step #1 Create a business plan

The very first thing you should do when setting up internet café is to create a business plan. A business plan is an essential part of the process in any business. If you want to raise capital, no investor or financial company will support you without a business plan. Moreso a good business plan will assist you to clarify your thinking and alert you to challenges that lie ahead.

Step #2 Choose a Location

The location where you internet café is situated really matter a lot. Choosing a good location can lead directly to a successful business, while a bad location can also lead directly to failure of the business. Note that locations near schools or colleges is a good tip because students are always busy on the internet.
Also heavy traffic and accessible locations with parking space is a good avenue for an internet café business.

Step #3 Create an Environment

Next step in setting up your internet café is deciding on what kind of internet environment you want to create. Do you want to create a hip hangout, a relaxed comfortable settings or a fast paced environment? Take note of some important things you should consider; designs/decorations and additional services you want to offer.

Step #4 Buy Equipment

Computer systems(should high end and fast systems)
Internet Access(should be high-speed broadband)
Networks connectivity devices(cable, switch, router, printer, scanner etc)

Step #5 Set up a Network

You will need the service of a technician , a cisco certified networker should always handle such task for your local area connection setup and internet connection.

Step #6 Purchase an Internet Management system

After you have networks your system and up running , you then purchase an internet management system i.e the timer software.

Step #7 Determine Your Charge Rate

Be strict and friendly in this area and also depending on your total cost and the outfit of your internet café . Things you should keep in mind when creating a price structure. Internet access is becoming a lot more affordable and more people have internet access at their homes.
Also compare your prices to your competitors. You do not have to copy your competitor’s pricing structure exactly but use it as a reference guide.

Step #8 Promote your Internet Café

Marketing and promotional strategy always help a lot attracting customers like giving bonus, advertising, distribute hand bills.

Step #9 Stay updated

When you own and operate internet café, you should always stay updated with new technology like installing the latest application software on your systems.

Step #10 Retain Customer

Once you have the internet café open for business, you will need to adopt a strategy to retain you customers as well as attract new ones. A good suggestion is for you to give discount to your customer as well as create a loyalty system plan and employ a good public relation.

Men your tips is more than helpful, i have always wanted to setup an internet cafe and using your tips will be a good start. I have not been in Nigeria for the past three years now but news coming from there suggest that the business is not moving anymore except you allow the yahoo boys to thrive and do their thing but i don't want that. You never said anything about this yahoo boys stuff. you know a lot of money and time will be spent in software and monitoring to stop these things in a cafe. Neither did you say anything about energy cost for running a cafe and maintenance of the hardwares in the cafe. But i am looking forward to hear more from you. We can chat on messenger or i can send you an email. Thanks once again.

nice one

I expected you to start or atleast finish with power supply/management, backup systems like UPS/Inverters etc. Look if you are going set up a cyber cafe in Nigeria without considering these, then forget it. I manage a cafe and i can tell you the only thing that weakens my zeal about this business right now is the huge amount i have been spending on diesel and when one of my batteries gets weak i have to budget not less than 50k to get a good one.

Until the above taken care of, i think you better think again.

Thats just it, the problem is POWER! POWER!! POWER!!!

Lol guy u mean NEPA wahala ? ;d

Please i know i'm nt to post here but i which 2 inform u all 2 come and join us @ www.my1ng.com(my1nigeria) i know without u it can't move.Tanks

Great article. But im not sure if cybercafes are good investment these days with the access to internet and phone steadily increasing. But i might be wrong

what about the provider's palava?

Yea!, Provider also has its own palava, But i guess the main problem here is the Power Stuff, If you aint got enough power supply or a consistent one as well, i guess there would likely be a failure in business and a sluggish progress in This internet thing,

BRB

Good Post there,

Great tips!

@mabotech
Thanks for the tips.

I own a cafe myself and all that I can tell anyone is this:

1. You have to be really experienced in computer hardware and software maintenance (I mean YOU and not your manager or your 'engineer'),
2.You have to know how to handle multiple tasks at the same time,
3.You have to be strong willed and ready to attend to difficult customers (there are usually many of them),
4. I don't need to remind you that you have to have a big capital,
5. Should I also tell you that location is everything?
6. If number 5 above is ok it means good patronage and therefore you can take care of fueling, however, if 5. is not okay, just close down in time while you can still sell your equipments at good price.

as for yahoo yahoo guys, that is very very easy. You don't need police or EFCC.

I discourage them with some really sneaky software that monitors their 'work'

I dig what they do realtime and can even interfere with their 'work' causing them real loss thereby scaring them away.

don't believe that they are the ones who make cybercafes because they are NOT. They will only kill your cafe and look for a new one.
If you want me to tell you how they are not the ones making cybercafe, I will do that in my next post.

The summary of all this is that you have to be very hard working and you will be fully present to gain anything out of your cybercafe investment.

@ Mabotech Has really given a professional advice but to nail it all.

I have only one advice.

"Make sure you have a good reliable system person around with access to resources that fixes the computer whenever the system breaks down and don't wait for two months to do that.

Be Happy

Andy Ochumba
Greenhope

just forget about cafe biz unless you want to be isp

and good managerial skills

I will like to say that you might have a good location, but if your ISP is bad you might not make it. It is important that you get a good ISP to provide you access to the internet. You have to make a choice of either using a VSAT connection or a radio connection. When using VSAT connection especially the KU band you must consider the effect rain has on it.

That the speed of your internet connection matters the most. I remember when I was using a radio connection from an ISP, we had a good site but my customers were always complaining of the internet speed and I was loosing them. As I changed the ISP which gave my a wonderful speed, but, on a higher cost, my customers started comming back and they where always happy after browsing.

@BIGJOE |yO scare me big time with your yahoo post and all that stuff, wht makes u think that this guys doesnt make up your cyber? they make up big time cos they sppent vertually most of their precious times on the net, and thereby causing progrss to your business, i think we need look into this,

Abt the EFCC parading cyber stations, i tell u, they are the hungryu ones.!,

BRB

I really gained some knowledge from your post, please permit me to ask you to go a little bit further by suggesting some good ISPs that are reliable and affordable.

More power to your elbow. One love Naija

[b]Hey Guys,

If I had this information about how to setup a cafe about 2yrs ago,
it would have been a gret think to get into,
but Do you think that setting up cyber cafe is a viable business to do now,
considering the current state of internet service in nigeria,
almost all the telecom companies in nigeria now has one or more browsing package and they are striving hard to make it more affordable for the common man on the street. Infact one them just launch a browsing package that all you'll have to pay is just N500, but you must know how-to configure your current phone and sim card for the service, you can contact me for the configuration details ( 07058007555 )
And the best part is that, you can browse with everywhere in Nigeria.

Now knowing that these giant telecom companies are what you will be competing with, then you should ask yourself "Can I Win"

Think about it.
Alex

You can give me a call on 07058007555, if you want to browse on your laptop or desktop with N500 anywhere in Nigeria, no need to buy any modem, and it will work for 24hrs[/b]

U are a lowlife scumberg! wil 500 solve Ur problem. Why cant U post it here rather than askin 4 N500.

@brein,
If you have a good location and a reliable and fast ISP, I can assure you that the time that the yahoo guys spend in your cafe is not 'their precious time' rather its your own precious time.

Think about this.
You sell 30 mins ticket at N100 for e.g, 1 hour for N150 and 6 hours for N600.

A yahoo guy will NOT buy 1 hour or 30 mins. They usually go for the bulk time, 6 hours @ N600 in this case.

He will use that 6 hours ticket till he exhausts it without leaving the system. Now a legit student for example will come in buy 30 minutes @ N100 and use 20 minutes from it and leave the system for another person. By the end of the day 10 different people buying and using 1 hour ticket will have given you nothing less than 900 naira for the 6 hours the yahoo guy paid 600 naira for.

Do you get it now.

You are only at the mercy of these yahoo guys if you have poor patronage. Thats when people see them as the people who make your cafe. They are not!
While they are doing their thing, they use bandwidth consuming programs like email extractors and email spyder which kills your bandwidth.

If you have poor patronage, figure if it is due to some difficult reason like bad location and just quit the bizness in time. However if you have a good location but unreliable and slow ISP, you can still change your fate by changing ISP. Even though it is usually not a cheap thing to do at all.
But there are very fast ISPs out there outside the shores of this countruy. Though they charge more.

@pex4me

the guy who said Cafe bizness is no more,
I cant just say you do not know what you are saying because I dont know how rich people are where you reside.
However, the fact remains that internet service is still not free and many people still cant afford those things you call cheap things.

Yea all ur posts are all good ones. But I must tell the truth, that Cybercafe business depends totally on Good Service (ie the speed of your internet) other factors must be in place too like power, customer relationship, system engineer etc

1. POWER: Your not the only one that suffer the power problem, all other business in nigeria sufers that, but if you have fast internet service all customer can always understand that is a general problem and they must surely come to you no matter what. And I must tell you that POWER will soon improve to 60%

2. Fast internet service all depends on your ISP, so if you need a gud one you can contact me cos i even work as site enigineer with a very good one that is very cheap and reliable.
I must tell you we give a grace of some days after installation so that u can confirm the speed before you pay for your subscription, which no other ISP's does that.

3. I can equally help you setup up a new or manage an existing one

feel free to call me on 08063849174 email me at donnishcom@yahoo.com

LISTEN AND LIASTEN REAL GOOD, IF U LOVE URSELF AND DO NOT WANT TO CRY HELP ME, DONT GO INTO CYBER CAFE BUSINESS. HOW MUCH DO THINK THEY MAKE WITH INCREASE IN ROAMABLE INTERNET ACCESS ON LAPTOPS,PHONES AND BIGGER ISP GIVING HOME USERS LESS AND LOT OF COMFORT AT HOME. HOW WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN THE EXPENSES ON DIESEL EVERYDAY.
THE CAFE OWNERS KNOW TRUTH AND IT IS A FACT.

The best step to making a cyber cafe business survive is customer relation. The person you put in charge of the cafe or the cafe attendants must be polite no matter what happens.

Ekwere:

LISTEN AND LIASTEN REAL GOOD, IF U LOVE yourself AND DO NOT WANT TO CRY HELP ME, don't GO INTO CYBER CAFE BUSINESS. HOW MUCH DO THINK THEY MAKE WITH INCREASE IN ROAMABLE INTERNET ACCESS ON LAPTOPS,PHONES AND BIGGER ISP GIVING HOME USERS LESS AND LOT OF COMFORT AT HOME.

For your infomation, all these things doesnt last long. Free this, free that!!! I dont think anybody should rely on such services.

Ekwere:

HOW WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN THE EXPENSES ON DIESEL EVERYDAY.
THE CAFE OWNERS KNOW TRUTH AND IT IS A FACT.

It is true that the diesel consumption is much but its kinda cheaper than before. Atleast a litre is about 120naira for now. All you have to do is get a good generator that cunsumes less diesel.

HI, I am replying to ur last post on nairaland. ive been trying your number, but i cant get through. i would appreciate it if i can get the configuration settings that you talked about.my email is rowenamaths@yahoo.com. thanks

God bless u 4 dis useful info.

@Cipriani
Ignoring the insults from Cipriani, I will like to inform everyone that the N500 is paid to the Network Operator, not me. And that is all you pay to browse for 24hrs. It is a Pay As You Go Service, and you only pay for the days you decide to browse.
What I wrote in my previous post is that all those who want, can contact me for the Configuration Settings and SIM Activation.
And for all those who have call me so far,  I hope you are enjoying the Internet Service.

Alex
07058007555

You can also visit this website for more details about the service. www.is4me.info
http://www.is4me.info