This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Dylan Zajac, 21, a senior at Babson College. At 15, Zajac had a side hustle thrifting and fixing computers. The gig inspired Zajac to found his nonprofit Computers 4 People, which provides refurbished computers to people in need. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Computers 4 People
When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
I started out by going to thrift stores around Brooklyn, New York, with my high school friends, just as a fun hobby. We’d take the PATH train from Hoboken and then skate from thrift store to thrift store, often hitting three or more in a single day. At these shops, we’d sift through piles of old electronics, hunting for hidden gems. When we found something valuable, we’d negotiate hard to get a deal. Some days we bought so many computers we had to stack them on our skateboards to roll them home.
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Once we got the computers back, we’d clean them up, fix them and sell them on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. Before long, this hobby turned into a real business. At one point, my entire bedroom was filled with random desktops and Apple PowerBooks. The margins were insane, sometimes as high as 80%!
What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? How did it evolve into the nonprofit you run now?
One of the key things that made it possible for me to start my side hustle was having access to a laptop and the internet when I was in middle school. I’d spend hours watching YouTube tutorials on how to refurbish computers and learning the ins and outs of ecommerce platforms, which helped me reach hundreds of customers, all from my bedroom.
But as I got deeper into this, I started noticing a huge problem. On my trips to Brooklyn, I saw mountains of e-waste — computers tossed away by people and companies who had no idea how to dispose of them properly. At the same time, I realized just how many people in the world (2.6 billion to be exact) don’t have access to the digital world. That’s when the idea for Computers 4 People hit m