Today we’d like to introduce you to Darryl Sledge.
Darryl, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I served in the US Air Force 9 years where I learned aircraft maintenance. My duties were focused on aircraft electrical systems. While serving in Japan in the mid 80’s I had the opportunity to build my first computer from scratch. It was an Apple IIe clone. After my honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1988 I worked with Lear Siegler and Lockheed Support Systems for awhile and then decided to return home to Lancaster SC where I got a position as a letter carrier with the US Postal Service. I got a computer in 1992 with Windows 3.1 and it inherently would throw a lot of errors and at the time we didn’t have anywhere to take them so I had to figure the errors out. In 1995 a computer store opened in town and I got to be friends with the owners. I worked with them for a few years and decided to attend ECPI College of Technology in the evenings to get more learning in the computer field. I then decided to quit the postal service and open my own store. Because I’m a loyalty freak and know so many people in Lancaster I couldn’t open there. I didn’t want to hurt my friend’s business. Somebody suggested Chester SC as they didn’t have a computer repair business in town. So I opened in March of 2002 and have been opened since. I have had some medical issues as of late that has required the business to be closed for a couple of months but have since re-opened. During that time I’ve had a couple of apprentices that I’ve trained and they have gone on to do other things.
Alright, 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?
There have been challenges. I’ve never made much money in the business but that wasn’t really why I got into it. I mainly got into the business to do something I enjoy without having somebody with their boot on my neck ordering me around. I got tired of taking orders and wanted to do my own thing. Another challenge is with any small town people tend to think they have to go to a bigger town to get things done. I know of many cases to where people have taken their computers to big box stores for repair and once I heard what it cost I told them I could’ve saved them so much money. I was in the Rotary for awhile figuring that would help with the local businesses but even after I gave presentations to the group they still felt the need to deal with Dell instead. One of my apprentices reluctantly came to me for a computer he built himself but couldn’t get to start up. I spent 10 minuters with him and the computer and I got it running. That was on a Saturday. The following Monday he came in and asked could he study with me. Seemed like a nice kid so I let him come in and learn. A couple of years later we were talking and I asked him why did he want to learn from me because the fix for his computer wasn’t that big of a deal. He said, “you don’t understand, I took that computer to Rock Hill, Charlotte NC, and Lancaster stores and none of them could get it running, you did”. I always liked that story.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We started out building and selling our own computers but we repaired any brand and still do all of that. But over the years with new things coming out such as cellphones and game systems we’ve also started repairing them. I think one of greatest attributes is, when it comes to a difficult problem or issue with a system, I’m like a dog with a bone. I won’t give up until I have tried absolutely everything I can possibly do to fix it. Sometimes I have to think way out of the box. If I still can’t fix it at that point, it can’t be fixed. Well, not without replacing some hardware. Years ago, I wanted to and wish I had, started my own national brand of gaming computers. I was going to call the overall brand Demonhorse and was going to name the different base systems after different mythical horses. Then I also thought about just doing the overall brand of Hammer and name the systems after different style hammers and nails. But there is so many cutrate and crappy systems out there until it’s hard to prove to people you are the better brand. Mostly all they see is price tag, they don’t have a clue as to the part quality to what’s inside a system.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I traveled the world and lived all over the USA. I lived in South Korea 2 years, Japan 3 years, spent about 6 months in the Philippines. Spent some time in Guam and Okinawa. My home is in SC, but have lived in Texas, Illionis, New Mexico, and Minnesota and have visited pretty every state in the nation except the northeast.
Pricing:
- very very competitive
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hammertechrepair.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hammercomp
