Over the last several weeks it has become apparent to me – through direct experience – that you can accomplish everything required to start a company without leaving your house. Or home office. Or desk in the home office. Or chair, at the desk, in the home office, at your house. Except to get up and stretch, get some exercise, go talk to folks, etc.
For instance, if you were to start a company, you might want to:
1) Make sure a domain name for your company is available. You can do this at lots of sites but a good one is the Whois database at Network Solutions. If the name isn’t available, keep looking. Otherwise if you decide to go to the private domain name route that someone already owns – be careful - it’s a real pain and there are lots of shady characters.
2) Buy that domain name. GoDaddy is an excellent place to purchase domains and they have all sorts of promotional discounts, add ons, hosting options, etc.
3) Choose a legal entity and register with the state. Sure, you could and probably should use a lawyer. Another option is an inexpensive corporation or LLC creation company like LegalZoom. But those sites are a waste of money if you read a few links on LLCs (if you are going that route) and have half a brain. It’s not that difficult to go straight to the Secretary of State website for your state, like Texas. They have complete online submittal of the application and it is usually approved in a couple hours. Presto – LLC!
4) Get a Federal EIN. A person I know very well who started her own company 20 years ago said to get an EIN meant filling out the SS-4 paperwork and sending it in to the IRS, and several weeks later by snail mail you would get your EIN number. Well, the web has clearly changed that. Now just go directly to the IRS website and run the magic EIN Wizard (literally, a wizard). Within 8 minutes, give or take 2 minutes if you are a faster or slower reader, you will get a pdf of your new EIN number.
5) Get a business bank account. No more going into your local bank branch to do this. Just fill out an online business checking account application at any of multiple places like Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Since you have your LLC name (which you received in less than two hours), and your EIN number (tack on 8 minutes), you have everything required to open that checking account. An online transfer from your personal account means you wouldn’t even have to visit the local branch.
All of this assumes of course that you have successfully written your business plan (a MUST), have secured financing, and have thoroughly vetted your new business idea with family and colleagues.
In another blog post I’ll talk about some of the other cool things you can do to help you start a business.
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