What do I Need to Know to Start my own Business?

Here are 15+ things you need to do before starting a business:

• Read "Freelancer's Union" (book and blog) and "Getting Started in Consulting" (book)

• Scoped out specialty/industry for (consulting) services

  • Are you an expert in an industry and/or what the prospective client is trying to do?

  • My elevator pitch: AI due diligence for VCs.

• Determined your business model or what rates to charge, using a top-down or bottom-up approach

  • To help you estimate your rate, the top-down approach starts with your desired salary to set your rate; the bottom-up approach starts with your total expenses, to help you understand what your minimum rate needs to be -- to break even.

  • How much of your time do you expect to be billable? 50%?

  • Will you take equity as part of your rate? How will it be vested?

  • Will you charge by the hour? or by the week? or by the project? as a recurring monthly fee for a retainer? something else? 

• Set your invoicing frequency and repayment terms, e.g. bi-weekly with a net-15

• Decided what you'll do in case of non-payment

  • Will you charge late fees?

  • Will you stop all work until you're paid what you're owed?

• Found a great lawyer to help draft and review contracts (including non-payment terms) + sign contract(s) before starting work

• Settled on invoicing template and re-iterated non-payment terms from the signed contract in the "Notes" section of your invoice

• Registered as a sole proprietorship with your city -- or maybe you decide To incorporate or not? That is the question

• Applied for an EIN

• Lined up 1+ clients, before you start consulting full-time

• Set aside 6 months of savings

• Opened separate business credit card and business checking account

• Set 6-month revenue target, to  help me determine if I should continue pursuing consulting full-time

• Determine if I'll be using accrual or cash accounting to determine my taxes

• Prepared for quarterly estimated taxes

• Bought insurance on the Exchange

• Opened a SEP IRA account

• Listened to "Freelance Transformation" podcast

• Settled on your productivity stack 

  • Mine is: Trello, Calendly, Hubspot CRM, Zoom, and Zapier

Disclaimer: Please consult your own legal, accounting, and tax advisors before starting your business.

What worked for you? Good luck!

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