Bringing Structure to this Series

The purpose of this blog is to bring public accountability to my work. As I am going through the process of creating this business, I’m realizing that there are a lot more hurdles and I’m doing a shitty job of measuring my progress.

It’s not enough to write every week, I need to write with structure. So I’ve decided to begin adding a little bit of structure to this series, beginning with this post.

By structure I mean a template of goals & milestones, their requirements, the business metrics and the progress made on them each week.

My template will list the next Milestone I’m trying to achieve, what needs to be done for it to be “unlocked”, and how much progress I’ve made. In essence, this series will become an extension of my to do list and my budget.

Next Milestone: Open for Business

Requirements —

• Register the company with the state.
• Obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS.
• Obtain a Sales Tax Permit from the Texas Comptroller.
• Obtain Assumed Name Certificate from the Dallas County Clerk’s Office.
• Open a Business Checking Account with Dallas Credit Union.
• Publish the completed initial website including pricing.
• Acquire payment acceptance through Square.
• Get laundry bags with the logo, phone number, and website printed on them.

To be open for business means to be able to accept money as a legal entity, which entails having a business bank account. Each state has slightly different requirements to open a business bank account, but they all require registering your business with the state and federal government.

1 — Register the company with the state —

You do this by filing a form and in some states your company’s articles of organization. Go to your Secretary of State website and find the forms to register your company based on the type of company it is. Limited Liability Companies (LLC) are the most common but I have decided to create a corporation instead. The reason is I’m approaching this company not as its owner but as its first employee. One of my fundamental values is treating employees right, and I’m going to do that by being one myself.

I wanted to call my company Laundry Loop Inc. but Texas is more strict than Florida about trademarks and copyrights, and because I know a similar name exists out there, I decided to name the corporation after myself and the domain I own. I registered Sandfar Inc with the state of Texas and issued 10 million shares to the corporation on January 7th.

2 — Obtain Employer Identification Number from the IRS —

This process is easy. Just go to the IRS website and follow the instructions. Make sure to download and save your confirmation letter. Some banks request this document and some don’t. I made the mistake of just saving the actual number and not the confirmation letter. That cost me 30 minutes on hold with the IRS only to find out they will only fax or mail it, no email.

3 — Obtain a Sales Tax Permit from the Texas Comptroller —

In order to figure out exactly what I needed to open a business checking account I started looking at local credit union websites. Dallas Credit Union provides a checklist on their website. From this checklist I knew what I needed and began checking them off. To get my sales tax permit I filled out the online application at the Texas comptroller website. The permit will take a couple of weeks but I’m confident the application will be enough to allow me to open a bank account.

4 — Obtain Assumed Name Certificate from the Dallas County Clerk’s Office —

This is where I am now. I have to wait until Monday to go there. This is the final hoop to jump through to get a bank account. The reason it is so important to have a bank account is to separate my personal and my company finances as soon as possible. It really helps with accounting. In most states it is understood and forgiven that in the first few months the lines between personal and company finances may be blurred, but the cleaner you can make your books the better.

This week I am dead set on getting a bank account opened and separating the company’s money from my own. With that in mind, here are my goals:

1. Open a business checking account.
2. Create a budget spreadsheet.
3. Finish the website including the pricing of services.
4. Create an admin email.
5. Create a Square account and get the reader.
6. Create a Xero account.
7. Create a Just Works account.
8. Create a Facebook page.
9. Run a prelaunch Facebook ad.

My plan is to push really hard this week and try to get as much done as possible. You can follow me in real time on Snapchat.

This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a 2016 Dallas startup called Feather. If you would like to read more, here is the Table of Contents for the series.

Previous story: What it Means to Bootstrap

Next story: Oops. Had to Change the Company Name

Thanks for reading!