It's never too late to start your own business!

Have you been thinking about going solo? Starting a new business, or maybe a freelancing gig? I’m certainly not an expert, but I’ve done it! Here is a "quick" list of things you will need to do in order to start your new business.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, as each step has way more to it and will require more research on your part, but my hopes are that this will get you motivated and headed in the right direction.

As most things go, I planned for this to go out at the beginning of the new year when all of us are motivated and ambitiously planning out our new goals! It is still January, so I’ll just consider it a win.
​

1. Set up a spreadsheet to keep track of all your expenses. Just do this at the beginning so that you don’t forget about anything; it’s all tax deductible later. I have one with the date of the transaction, description of the item/service purchased, amount paid, card/account used for payment so I can go back to my bank records if I need to, and any notes such as when a service will expire and need to be renewed or usernames/passwords that I had to create. I made this step #1 on that list so that you can feel like you’re making some headway because step #2 can bring you to a screeching halt if you don’t persist!
2. Decide on a name. Don’t be too picky. I spent two years too many dilly dallying with this part. I think your brand will be much more than just your name in the long run, anyway. If you’re spending too much time on this part, go out of order and do step #9 because it’s fun.
3. Search for and immediately purchase the domain name. I have a possibly irrational fear that there is some way people out there can monitor which domains you search for and then buy them out from under you. Once the domain has been purchased, you have to purchase it directly from the owner, and they can charge you whatever they want. I purchased the domain name from GoDaddy for under $20.
4. Register your business. I chose to register as an LLC, and then I filed form 2553 to be taxed as an S-corporation. Research this to see if it’s right for you. I used Incfile and paid ~$175 because I wanted them to serve as my registered agent for now. They offered a free phone call with a business consultant where I was able to ask questions about which tax forms to file and when, and in my opinion it was very helpful.
5. File for an EIN. This is done through the IRS.
6. Create an Operating Agreement. Templates for these can be downloaded in many places for free.
7. Record the minutes from your first “meeting.” Nothing too fancy, just a record that you can provide to show you did it. Again, templates are available online for free.
8. Open a business checking account. I searched around and couldn’t find a bank or credit union that didn’t require a minimum of $1500 to be in the account at all times (on average) without incurring a monthly fee. If you know a way around this, please comment below! Use this account to pay for all of your business expenses. Do some research to find out which things you can consider “business-related” and which things are a little outlandish.
9. Design your website. You can certainly make this step #1 if it gets you motivated to do the rest!! This can be done for free on most platforms so there’s absolutely no risk in just starting one, and then if you decide you like it, you can purchase a monthly or yearly subscription for it to be hosted under your actual domain name. I designed mine in Weebly originally, and now I’m considering switching to WordPress for the different blogging and newsletter features. At this stage, I don’t think anyone needs to spend more than $100/year for hosting, and there may even be less expensive ways to do it. These hosts/design services allow you to purchase a domain through them, but then I believe THEY will own the domain name. I don’t know all the ins and outs, but after all the researching I did, I came to the conclusion that I might have more control over the domain in the future if I purchased it directly and then had it point to a web host. This guy has many, many useful blogs for this whole process.
10. Purchase local/state business licenses, if applicable.
11. File form 941 quarterly. Don’t forget!
12. Start a blog. I’m still trying to decide what my theme is, but don’t let that freeze you up and keep you from having one! Blogs are great ways to update your web content regularly – that is, if you’re regular about it – and Google and other search engines prefer to display your website in search results if you update your site regularly. Also, if you’re writing on a topic that’s related to your work (and indirectly showcases your knowledge and skills…), you will naturally incorporate a lot of language onto your website that is “SEO” or search engine optimized. SEO language also bumps up your site in Google search results. There are many people who blog about SEO best practices.
13. Make Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages for your business. It can become a lot to keep up with (so I recommend setting boundaries for yourself such as daily time limits on social media), but these can be very important advertisement and networking platforms for your business depending on who you are serving. I use each of these for certain types of outreach; for example, I recently posted a guide for grad students on Facebook because that’s where I’m connected to that group of people, but I didn’t post it on LinkedIn because I didn’t think it would apply to most of those connections and I didn’t want to saturate them with content they don’t care about. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into marketing :) and you can certainly hire people to do this type of work for you. Also, marketing is not evil.
14. Make a logo. This can be used as a profile picture on your social media pages to begin your branding process! I made mine in PowerPoint.
15. Watch the hits come in! I found it very motivating to see the number of page views for my website go up and up! This made me want to continue with content and design new campaigns. I believe most of the hosting services include metrics on page views, and you can also use Google Analytics (free) to track these data. Be sure to exclude your own IP address so that you’re not inflating your results ;)

It is free to complete most of these tasks. I think I spent about $300 getting things up and running. That’s a pretty small investment for something that could turn into a successful avenue for serving others the way you want to.

Disclaimer: I am not receiving any compensation for using the names of websites/businesses within this post, and I’m not necessarily promoting any of them. I am writing about my personal experiences and what has/hasn’t worked for me.

I hope this is helpful! Questions or comments? Leave them below!