Gadgeteers are 21st century auto-mechanics. They’re useful, skilled, and — if you’re unlucky — can use technical jargon to charge you half a dollar, a mortgage, and your firstborn. Thankfully, there are local tech stores that work for you, not against.
iPhone Todd opened its East Side location in January 2012, and since then has grown in customer-base, employees, stores, and areas of expertise. Owner Todd Veech, an Evansville native with a wife and three kids, fell into the business after nine years of service with the U.S. Army as a paratrooper.
“I drop my phone a lot, like anyone else,” Veech says. “So I would go in somewhere to get my screen fixed and they’d charge an arm and a leg. Finally, I decided to fix it myself and I was good at that, so that’s what I wanted to do.” Veech started repairing phones out of his home, then took the risk of opening a store and found it really exploded, he says. In September, he opened a second store on the West Side.
Starting off solely with iPhone repairs, Veech had to turn down a lot of customers who brought in other electronics. “People would call and say so-and-so store was charging too much,” he says. “We expanded to all phones, tablets, PCs, and gaming systems, and now we’re who cell phone stores are referring to for repairs.”
iPhone Todd’s rapid growth took the market by surprise, and in response had a lot of negativity from other stores. “We’d get fake reviews and testimonies on our site,” he says. “But I know when we treat our customers with respect, they’ll be happy and will come back.”
His employees have certifications with acronyms long enough for the layman to choke on, and Veech stays up to date with cell phone developments by attending sessions in New Jersey and Tampa, Fla., every few months.
Whether you crush your phone and break the screen (Veech says they get about 50 a day) or your Xbox 360 has the horrendous “Red Ring of Death,” iPhone Todd is equipped to quickly fix your electronics the right way.
Visit iphonetodd.com for information on company services, or drop by the East Side location at 1400 E. Division St., or on the West Side at 5435 Pearl Drive.
