All too often, students wake up from long nights of partying with just two things to show for the previous evening’s activities—a headache and a smashed phone screen.
It’s a story that one college entrepreneur has heard time after time, and he is making the most out of it.
Senior Phillip Reinhart is the founder and owner of Cracked College, a mobile device repair company created in March 2015 that serves the Duke community and Durham area. What began as a group assignment for an entrepreneurship course is now a full-fledged business for Reinhart, who said he has repaired approximately 200 phones on his own in the last year.
“As we started doing research we found out that the feasibility of [a phone repair business] was much easier than we had once predicted,” Reinhart said. “The group agreed that they would help out, but they wouldn’t necessarily have any investment in it.”
Reinhart’s project group helped him get his business off the ground by providing small investments and business advice, but Reinhart now has full ownership of the company, which he said is approaching $20,000 in revenue.
Reinhart added that one of the most difficult aspects of launching the company was learning the technical skills associated with device repairs. A year ago, he had no prior experience with fixing phones, but can now repair devices manufactured by Apple, Samsung and Motorola, among other companies.
“I broke my own phone just to see if I could repair it,” Reinhart said. “Having to train myself and figure out how to fix it was really frustrating...it was just a combination of all these things, online materials and the practical [situations].”
Reinhart noted that the goal of the business—which primarily services Apple’s iPhone models—is to provide more convenient and affordable repair services than those offered by other companies or manufacturers.
Although the company now keeps Reinhart busy—he said he receives about 10 repair inquiries per week—Cracked College has experienced difficulties along the way. For example, Reinhart said early in the business’ development there were issues finding a reliable distributor who could sell parts at wholesale prices in low quantities.
“By the end of the [Spring 2015] semester I had several thousand dollars invested in tools and all these fixed costs and supplies,” he said. “I was in the red. I was barely making money. I just couldn’t figure out how the system worked.”
The company’s profits have since improved, though, as Reinhart said he recently located a distributor in North Carolina who can deliver parts locally and without the increased time and costs associated with shipping.
As a result of improved part distribution and efficiency, Reinhart said, the company’s profits have steadily increased over time. Cracked College’s earliest repairs had profit margins around 10 percent, but today’s jobs yield profit margins near 45 percent.
The company’s Facebook page advertises that repairs can often be completed in 30 minutes or less, which Reinhart said provides an incentive for customers to choose Cracked College instead of an off-campus repair option.
“It’s slightly marveling how fast that took,” sophomore Amy Wang said, after Reinhart repaired her phone’s screen in about 20 minutes. “Speed is one thing, and also just the fact that he literally learned [the skills] a year ago, which is just incredible.”
Reinhart originally performed all customer repairs in his dorm room, but the company’s emphasis on convenience recently inspired him to create a briefcase-sized device repair kit containing an array of tools and parts that he can use to fix phones from anywhere on campus.
The repair kit not only enhances Cracked College’s ability to reach customers, but also helps market the business by increasing its visibility on campus.
“You’ll see me in the library fixing phones, you’ll see me in the BC fixing phones...and that has also increased referrals because people see us around campus,” Reinhart said. “People are like, ‘Wow, I couldn’t have gotten this service anywhere else, I’m very happy with it.’”
Reinhart said he spends very little on marketing costs and that most of his referrals come by word-of-mouth or through people recommending Cracked College on Duke Facebook groups.
“The most impressive thing he’s done is how he’s been able to get his name out without advertising at all,” said senior Jared Lin, Reinhart’s friend and business advisor.
In the near future, Reinhart hopes to expand the Cracked College brand to other universities in North Carolina and said that he is currently looking to hire a company technician at UNC.
“I would love to try to get this off the ground a little more by the end of the semester, finding someone to train and take it over,” Reinhart said. “If things go really right, I could potentially keep working in this and keep expanding, helping train people at other universities.”
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