Getting started in business (part 2 kind of)

2 weeks ago, I wrote about a conversation I had with a mate about starting a business. Last week, I had a conversation with my sister that will form the basis of this entry (if I try really hard I could just plaigarise conversations I have for my entire content writing career). My sister (not the sister that was inspiration for Knokal — another one) has been in her profession for the last 15 years and I can guarantee she is one of the best. And she is looking at growing that into her own business. She has a problem she wants to fix for her customers, her problem is she doesn’t have any clue what to do next from a practical side. Here is my advice to her.

*disclaimer — take this with a grain of salt, a lot of people will tell you I am dead wrong for one reason or another. There is always a chance of that. I am not an expert, just a dude with an opinion*

Check for a dotcom before you do anything

Most people (pretty much everyone) will tell you the first thing to do is to check the ASIC roll for your desired company name before you register. Thats great if you are thinking Oz. But what if you aren’t? For example, Kohl’s may not be a name we are familiar with in Australia but its a pretty big name in the USA. You may not see it on the ASIC roll but you sure as hell can’t get the dotcom. Think big early!

So go on godaddy, or netregistry and check that you can get the name you want as a dotcom address. It usually costs about $15 a year to register. So check this first. And grab it. If you check the ASIC rolls later and someone has your name — it has cost you $15. A hell of a lot cheaper than the reverse ( $463 to register a company in Australia — and that is without any accountants or lawyers fees). $15 vs $463. Small price to pay for the comfort of having the name you want. The other advantage of the dotcom first theory lies in the next point. It buys you time to get the right advice.

Seek the right advice.

It shocks me how many people get themselves set up without speaking to a lawyer or an accountant first. This part isn’t cheap (and boy can I sympathise with wanting to keep costs down) but the alternative is much worst. Should you be a sole trader, partnership or company? It may cost a bit at the start to get this advice, but a wrong move could cost you your house, or your business.

Speak to an accountant or a lawyer. Speak to them once you know you want to move ahead. Get the advice and build your business on a solid foundation. It will make you feel better. And it will avoid pitfalls later on in your journey

Creating Brand / Logo

Next up is starting to define what your business is, and what peoples first impressions are going to be. This is going to be in the form of a logo 99% of the time. Choosing a logo theme can get the creative juices flowing about who you are, who your business is and what it is going to stand for. It can also be frustrating as hell. Ask Channtel who did mine. I dont think she has forgiven me yet for my constant rewrites and “suggestions”.

This is another expense but it is necessary. Visualisation is such an underrated tool of behavioural psychology. You can own a dotcom. You can own a pty ltd. But when you have a logo it is more real. Because it is tangible. You can see it and have it in your hands. It can go on business cards, letterheads, facebook pages and knokal profiles (I am allowed 1 plug per piece of content).

It is vitally important to find the right person/company for this. I love fiverr (www.fiverr.com) but not for this. This needs to be someone who can take the gibberish from your brain and use that limited information to create the face of your business. Find someone to be the hands for your brains.

If you genuinely have no idea — look at something like 99designs or design crowd. Put up a competition and let several others interpret your ideas. You may not get the personal touch, but you will be presented with a lot of different ideas. These ideas can be a great insight into how different people will interpret the message that you are trying to convey.

Designing a website

Surprisingly this part can be done on the cheap for the very early stages (not everything has to be expensive). Look at resources like squarespace (www.squarespace.com — my personal fave) or wix (www.wix.com) or look into wordpress (google wordpress its a pretty big developer community). And just mess around. Pick colours, photos, move buttons. Its pretty fun, and gives you base of what you do and don’t want.

I like to say that designing a website is like naming a baby — you don’t realise how many people you hate until you have to pick a name. It is exactly the same with design — you don’t realise which designs or functions you hate until you look at it and say “no way am I having that on my site”. Things that don’t bother on other sites become the end of worlds when they are on your site.

The other advantage of this approach comes in the next stages — if you decide you want to get a professional to design and create a website for you, you have something you can hand to them and say “I want it like this”. You have saved yourself hours in the creative process — which means hours you can be billed by the people making your site. You have communicated your vision and you will feel in control. It is awesome feeling like you have done the groundwork to build your vision. And its fun.

I said last week I would write an entry about building a product. That is coming. I also want to get into offshore vs onshore product building. And then who knows? Like all good pub bands I will take requests. Or I will just write more articles based on conversations I have during the week.