Starting a Business

While I was in school I started a business to earn some extra cash, it also looks good on a resume to say you were responsible enough to do it.

Starting a business is not as difficult as one may think. While there is a lot of work involved with the various aspects of marketing, cashflow, etc; actually filing the forms to start a company is pretty easy. This varies, of course, depending on the structure of the business you select. That is why to keep things simple, I'm going to talk about an LLC with only one owner (you!). Before you file your documents you really need to ask yourself a couple things:

1) What you are going to do or sell?
This can be a product or service. I have heard services fixing computers, selling on ebay, cutting hair, help writing papers/studying, etc. You could also try to sell something; maybe a unique item that you can make or a web page you can design.

2) What your name is going to be?
A good rule of thumb is to pick a name that describes what you do and what you stand for like "Friendly Computer Repair" or "Fast Hair Cuts". Of course these are simple and you could probably come up with something better, but you get the idea.

Now that you have the preliminaries done, you actually need to do it! Here is how:

1) Find the form

Once you are done with these you can head to your state's website and search for the forms section. You are going to be looking for "Articles of Organization". Do a little research about your state and make sure it is a state that is good for LLCs. Most are, but sometimes states have a history of treating various types of companies poorly.

2) Print and fill out the form and mail!
Not very complicated here, just make sure you spell everything correctly and sign! Usually there is a filing fee, so make sure you write a check!

Tadah!!!!

In a few days or weeks you will be sent back the same form stamped, approved, or what have you. You have now done the basic steps required to create your company!

In the future you will have to worry about:
Tracking Financial Info for your business, Taxes, etc. Feel free to ask me about these now, but I will be posting about them more in the future.