Lost guy wants to start his own business...doesn't know where to start

You can set up a corporation and get a tax ID number for it and make an "election to be an S corporation" and register any trade name and get any occupational license without to much cost of complications; I would say you could get all this done for under $500, with the corporate book and seal and all the rest of what you need.   The S corp election is just for IRS purposes and will give you the best tax results (it lets you treat the business income and expenses basically just like an individual and avoids complex corporate taxation issues). Being incorporated limits your personal liability if sued, to the assets of the corporation. 

Pick a trade name and get it registered with the state.  Pick a "fictious name" (which can be same) and register it too (example "LOOSE IT WITH ADAM").

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With that done, you need to get liability insurance or worry about anyone suing you if they say that your diet coaching hurt their health.  If you don't have that insurance someone suing you could get all your corporately held cash and assets.  If you keep the corporation stripped of money (called "thin capitalization") someone suing might be able to "pierce the corporate veil" to get to your personal assets ... which is self defeating; that defeats purpose of being a corporation.  Discuss this with a lawyer who can help you get all this set up and explain what you need to know.    Sign leases and all other things not as just Adam but as "Adam, President of Xyz corporation".

Get an accountant to help you with tax returns and setting up payroll and withholding if you will have any employees and have to withhold and pay in for them.  Set up a corporate bank account. 

I assume you will be a "one man band" and have no investors, partners, shareholders with an interest in the business, corporation or profits.  If that is not so, definitely get an attorney to help you structure it if others are involved with you (shareholder agreement, loan agreement, profit sharing agreement etc).  You can elect a spouse, parent or trusted person to be an officer with you or make them an authorized signer (alone or only with you) on the bank acct, if you will want them to write and sign cks when you are not available.

This should get you started.

Watch for new money coming out of congress and tax breaks to help small businesses too ... it only in the D.C. B.S. stage now (like most up there) but like "cash for clunkers" and "first time buyers credit", Obama is talking about throwing more money out from D.C.

Rob

That is an amazing thing Adam. I think you're completely right to start your own business.  I was going to offer my advice on that, but Rob has said it all  ( and in a more knowledgeable way than I could have.) . My best wishes for success in such a worthy cause.

I disagree with Rob on the "S Corp" it is not of much tax advantage unless you're making a lot of money (and that tax break may be taken away very soon).  You can get the same legal protection with an LLC if it is available in your state.  Rather than trying to do this all yourself without any help, find your local SCORE chapter or Small Business Development Center and make an appointment with one of their counselors.  They will walk you through the process and their services are FREE!  I work with a lot of start ups and their biggest challenge is having sufficient capital to start the business and live on while you are building your business.  Good idea to keep your job and build this business on the side.  Good Luck!

Adam,

Firstly, congratulations. That's an IMPRESSIVE accomplishment!

I think you should simply start out s a sole proprietorship until you see if you really have a viable business that is generating customers/income.

At that point, you can decide whether the other options are necessary.

It sounds like you need a base of operations or a platform to get started though.

Is that correct?

I was where you are a few years ago.  Then I discovered the ideal way to get started in just about any real business.

If you go to www.igetthenet.com, you will see all about what I mean.

I will help you any way I can.

I wish you the best of luck Adam,

Way to go Adam.

I agree with bphower, I would start out as a sole proprietor but instead of trying to do your ideas right off the bat I would get into affiliate marketing. You have an idea that you want to promote health and help others out. You know the process you went through and what you did to get there. Look for this type of stuff with the affiliate providers like cj.com, clickbank.com etc, they have tons of stuff even in the health a wellness area to promote. Find the types of things that you personally did to get where you are. Now I'm not saying that you don't follow through with your ideas on products but you may want to consider starting out at a lower cost to you by promoting other products that have been established.

By starting out with affiliate marketing you will not have the liability on you that you would have when selling your own product. Also this will allow you to build up a business a create income while you do R&D on your own product and when you are ready to you can move forward with your plans. You will have to be dedicated to this, it's a lot of work and doing halfway won't cut it.

Like I said you can start out at a lower cost doing affiliate marketing than it would be to incorporate and sell your own product. I say this from experience, if I could do it all over again I would have started as a sole proprietor and then built up to an LLC when I needed to.

I will give you the basics of what I mean.

First of all as a sole proprietor in most states you will not have get a business license until you have made a certain amount of money for the year. In Tennessee which is where I'm at that amount is around $4,000. Now business licenses do not cost that much at least not here, for me it was about $20.00 paid annually but if you can delay any money you have to pay out it works towards your benefit. The other part to that is once you have filed for a business license you may have to get with the state and file for a Sales and Use Tax account and Franchise and Excise Tax account, the state wants their revenue. I do know that you have to have the accounts if your an LLC or Corporation. You will have to check with your state.

The next thing is when you start an affiliate web site I would start it on Google Blogger. Now I know you are probably thinking, "Use a blog for a website"? Yes use Blogger, it's free and as long as you have content in the body of the site you can do this. It would be different if you just had affiliate links and banners then at some point you will get shut down. OK, by using Blogger this allow you to create a site and test it out to see what works in generating income.

You will also want to create multiple websites as many as you can handle and if you plan on doing this full on then that should be A lot. The reason I say this is because it is a known fact that 1 in 5 sites do not generate income and that kind of touches on your own product that you are thinking about selling if you have one site there is a good chance it may not generate income. You now as of December of 2009 need to have a disclaimer or fine print on your site that basically state that you make money with the site. There are some sites that you can create this on for free and just post into your site

Next is marketing your site. Again this will be in basics. You have Press releases, article writing, social media marketing, I'm going to throw in inbound links into this mix and also your keywords. All of these play a factor in getting traffic to your site, without traffic you don't exist. You need to research all of this, knowledge is king in this world.

You want to have at least a 3 to 4 GB laptop with a dual core processor, 15" to 17" screen and a web cam. If you can try to have the computer dedicated to the business and not have a bunch of personal stuff on it which takes up space. instead of MicroSoft office which will cost you $149.00 + tax use open office, it's a free download. You want to be able to track your income and expenses so you will need Intuit Quick Books. Quick Books now has an online setup now that you pay for by the month but I haven't made up my mind about that. They have a free deal but you can't print up reports with all the numbers listed it just gives you totals. So if you don't mind having some space eaten up on your computer you can always get Simple Start by Intuit it's about $109.00 with tax. If you haven't worked with Quick Books The hardest part is getting it set up correctly and logging things in properly but once you are familiar with it, it's a breeze.

I hope at least some of this is helpful to you.

Affiliate Marketing