Creating new web site

[jcampi]

Dan, I didn't say $10 a month was a budget buster. I'm just not going to upgrade without giving it some thought. It does seem like a pretty good deal to have the faster internet speed and the web hosting service. I'm just starting my development of a small business and I don't want to rush the matter.

[Rich-M]

John,
My goodness you have to make an investment of money and time to make a business work and that takes belief in what you are doing. If this idea is not worth $10 a month to you, scrap it. I mean I left the clothing business many years ago because to run a successful store meant an ongoing cost inventory refreshed every 3 months of $90,000 where I can run a computer business for a $1000 investment, but if I could find a business I could run that makes $50 a month for $10 cost, I would close this in a heartbeat!

[Rob (kern)]

John,
My neighbor used this free service a couple years ago for her personal webspace www.weebly.com

Rob

[jcampi]

Rich, I understand your point and agree with you. I'm just beginning the early steps of this venture and want to consider all options. I didn't even know my service changed with web hosting options to an upgraded plan. Right now I'm trying to be a bit conservative on things because my main employment with the State of NJ is coming under assault from Mr. Christie so I'm waiting to see what he does before going to far with a business.

[Dan18960]

John,

I would suggest the following:

• Business Plan. You need to layout a business plan as to qualifications you have, expectations of inventory availability and required stocking, advertising costs and returns, monthly recurring expenses (business related only), and mission statement. The mission statement should be as defining as possible because that is going to be your "bible" in growth and tracking success.
• Home Space. If your going to dedicate a specific area of your home for your business, it has to be strictly business and not co-mingled with recreation, other hobbies, or home activities. I have a room that is specifically my office workarea and all the computers there are strictly for business. I have another room set aside as my study where I have a complete computer setup for my relaxation and hobbies. Do I sometimes use my office computers for non-related business yes just as employees will use the office computers for thier web browsing but my hobbies are completely limited to my study area.
• Equipment. DO NOT USE YOUR HOME COMPUTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS. I can't state this strong enough. Your business computer should have ONLY the applications you need for business. Unless your in the music business there is no way you should have your itunes, ipod, mp3 player, or watching videos on your business box. You should have a backup plan and live religiously at following through because data is PRICELESS and to retrieve it from a recovery service is PRICEY! File cabinets are a must. You will need to keep warranty information, hard copies of client transactions, tax information, and expenses available.
• Documentation. Word and Excel are not only your friends, they are your companions in business. Keeping receipts and an Excel spreadsheet can make tax time a matter of a couple of hours vs days of sorting and entering at the end of the year. Word can keep your procedures - and you will want to have procedures no matter what your venture is. It will also work as a way of documenting correspondence.
• Applications. Every business venture has a proprietary software that is written to address the operation of that business. It is an expense that must be calculated in and updated. You don't have to begin your venture with the application but you must be aware of all the packages out there to migrate into when your venture grows. You can begin with Quickbooks and you should.
• Counsel. An attorney and an accountant should be part of your partnership. There are loopholes in everything out there and you have to have legal representation for that client that just has one thing on their mind - owning your home at any cost. There will be clients who fail to pay and you will have to legal representation to secure judgements. An accountant will make sure your books are correct, taxes are paid, and your business is succeeding.
• Insurance. Anything you do will have consequences and errors can cost more than years of insurance premiums.
• Marketing. Advertising keeps your name in front of your market and is very important. There is a sign I pass almost daily that says "Cutting Advertising to save money is like stopping the clock to save time" and that is so true. Failure to advertise or cutting corners on advertising does only one thing - removes your name (company) from prospective customers / clients. Don't expect a ton of business from advertising and marketing - the stats are like 1 in 100 respond to advertising and marketing promotions but not marketing means you will get 0 responses.

Your addressing a web site - have you googled your business or product and seen how many hits come back? Those are the competitors your going to be dealing with from day zero. How will you move your business to the first couple of pages. Think about when you surf the net - how many pages to you go through before you move on? Cut that in half for your customers.

Use tax is going to be VERY important - as a home user your exposure to the use tax in your state is not a priority but as a business owner in your state you are going to heighten that exposure so IF you buy something on the internet for use in your business be sure your accountant forwards the appropriate use tax for you. You would be surprised how aggressive an audit can get if you make a simple mistake on just one missed tax payment. After all, IF you missed paying that one use tax how many more have you "cheated" the state out of? And then they start looking at your personal purchases and they are going to go back 3 (and possibly 7 years) on all your internet purchases. Penalities can add up very fast.

Is it scary going into business YEP - but it can also be very rewarding. I had my own company in the early 90's and when we started our current company in the latter 90's my boss asked if I wanted to be a partner - I voted NO. I remembered the hats I had to wear and I just wanted to be an employee again. I have several hats I have to wear as the technical manager but the boss has ALL the hats because he has to wear a hardhat in my department while I simply have to wear a simple sports cap.

[jcampi]

Dan, that is a lot of valuable information. Thanks for the detailed information.

[Rich-M]

Very well done and detailed Dan but I need to add a few things.

At this point, the odds are John is at the theory stage which is really before mission statement so it is not that necessary to be so super organized quite yet.

I use all my computers in my business but I have backup for each individual one, and I use a bench machine for risky ventures, testing and client retrievals and scanning. I personally don't have the space to have separate business computers as many don't and I have no real "fun" uses as I made a deal with myself many years ago that I would not play games on a computer. Why? Because if I did, I would be a game maniac and would accomplish nothing much else in a day's time. Besides my business is computers anyway and so is most of my "fun personal stuff" then.

You might need a lawyer for business setup or an accountant or both especially to help you decide whether you are a proprietorship or corp, but to start when there is no income involved, none of that is necessary until you have a game plan as far as I am concerned.

As for use tax, don't be so concerned. If you resell anything with tax, that covers you anyway and as to how much material you will buy and not pay tax on, well that depends on what the business is but I doubt it will be relevant if your objective is to sell a product.

[jcampi]

Rich, you are on to something. I am still making plans for the business venture and I'm able to post on certain classifieds for the time being. I'm testing the 'waters' for my proposal. I want to see how things develop before taking the step to build a web site for the venture. The cost for web site hosting & higher web speeds does seem good from my provider, but I don't see the need to pay for the service just yet.

[Freehold Fred]

Originally Posted by Dan18960

John,

I would suggest the following:

• Business Plan...
• Home Space...
• Equipment. DO NOT USE YOUR HOME COMPUTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS....
• Documentation. Word and Excel are not only your friends, they are your companions in business. Keeping receipts and an Excel spreadsheet can make tax time a matter of a couple of hours vs days of sorting and entering at the end of the year. Word can keep your procedures - and you will want to have procedures no matter what your venture is. It will also work as a way of documenting correspondence.
• Applications...
• Counsel. An attorney and an accountant should be part of your partnership...
• Insurance...
• Marketing...
• Use tax ...

Is it scary going into business YEP - but it can also be very rewarding. I had my own company in the early 90's and when we started our current company in the latter 90's my boss asked if I wanted to be a partner - I voted NO. I remembered the hats I had to wear and I just wanted to be an employee again. I have several hats I have to wear as the technical manager but the boss has ALL the hats because he has to wear a hardhat in my department while I simply have to wear a simple sports cap.

Dan's Dictum - a keeper