Courtesy of Katie Ryan Pluer
Kristen Pfiefer, Shannon Lopez and Katie Ryan Pluer inside one of their uBreakiFix stores.
Katie Ryan Pluer was looking for more out of the time she had. Working a fulltime job, being a mother and a wife is a lot, but she felt she could be getting more out of what she was putting in. Luckily, her sister, Kristen Pfeifer, and childhood friend, Shannon Lopez, were on the same boat and they started looking into new business opportunities. The settled on uBreakifix, a device repair franchise that fixes everything from smartphones and tablets to computers and gaming consoles.
The group purchased their first franchise in May of 2019 in Greenfield, now they own several, including two facilities they built in Oak Creek and Kenosha and purchased another branch on the East Side. The group also has a few service vans that will be rolling out this month for mobile repairs.
Courtesy of Katie Ryan Pluer
Shannon Lopez, Katie Ryan Pluer and Kristen Pfiefer.
What’s your background?
I was a marketing director for a wealth management firm in Mequon. My friend, Shannon, owns another business and has been for the last 15 years. Looking at her life and her owning her own time, she has five kids, I have three kids, my sister has three kids, it got to the point where my sister and I were like, “We’re working for other people. Do we want to continue to do that? What’s the end game?” We wanted to take a chance on ourselves for once.
Since this is a chain, is there a corporate facility that deals with insurance for your employees?
No actually, we do everything on our own. We have around 20 fulltime employees and we do payroll, HR, insurance, marketing, anything you can think of, just like any other small business.
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Why the device-repair industry?
Pretty much anything that powers up, we can fix. The majority of our business is phones, computers and gaming systems. Devices are always going to be there and instead of people just getting rid of damaged ones and buying new ones, we saw an opportunity.
How has the pandemic affected your business?
Initially, like most businesses, it was hard to manage. Shannon, who handles all of our financials, was able to get us some PPP loans and we were able to keep our employees paid, which felt great to not let them down. We started doing carryout/drop-off service for about a three- or four-week period where we had to lock our doors.
What are your plans for the future?
Our next step is we’re looking to build out another store in Racine. Our idea would be from Milwaukee down to the border, we would kind of own that market. Truly what we’re trying to do is launch these mobile repair vans. With those, regardless if someone has insurance or not, they’ll come directly to their home or office. Our techs repair those devices in the truck, on site. Other markets already have these vans, but during the pandemic, production halted so we had to wait, since we were supposed to have them in summer.
