www.thereedroom.com
We're almost legit!
We only need a fire inspection to complete our business application. And it was far less expensive than we had originally anticipated.
$22 for a "DBA" (Doing Business As)
Obtaining a Sales and Use tax number was free
$40 business license from the city
$25 Home business permit
$87 bucks! I was shocked!
We're also receiving free counseling from the Utah Small Business Development Center. They receive their funding from the State of Utah, the US Small Business Administration and local universities.
We've had one-on-one counseling sessions and the offer free* classes on just about every subject that would be beneficial for small business owners to know. (*the courses are free, the materials in the courses are not).
We had (and still have) tons of questions but now we have an educated, experienced ear to offer input and explanations for us.
We expect to have our official license in the next two weeks and the website up and running in almost 3 weeks. So we've begun developing our marketing campaign. The primary focus will be to develop a local client base and spread through out the neighboring states. As it is, having worked for Summerhays Music has been a big advantage for us, I now have relationships with every band director in the county. I've also been compiling a list of all the schools and band directors in 7 states. The plan is once we've established ourselves locally, we'll start a direct mailing session to the schools in the intermountain west in addition to internet advertising.
While the licensing costs were lower than we expected, I don't think we fully grasped the costs of business materials. We need, boxes, baggies, tubes, packing peanuts, labels and label makers, letter head, business cards, an additional phone line, fax machine, a new computer desk, filing cabinet... sweet frijoles batman! We had roughly $1000 allocated for start up and just getting the basics we're tapping out. There's still a couple of pieces of equipment that we'd like to get, as well as more raw materials.
So, while we had originally decided to not apply/take out business loans, we might end up taking out a small loan. But that's still up in the air.
And it's kinda nice to be an entrepreneur. There's a feeling of freedom and ownership that doesn't come with being an employee. Although, we were strongly advised for me to NOT quit my job until the business is providing a consistent supporting income.
Really?! Nah! You don't say!
The website is being designed by our Brother-in-law (Helen's sister's husband to be exact), he dabbles in the graphic arts and is a network technician or something like that for the University Valley State College. So we have full confidence in his abilities and he's been very professional in the handling of things thus far. Don't worry, I'll slip him a cool, crisp twenty for his labors.
So, that about sums things up to this point. We're at the nervous, anxious stage where we might be hugely successful or barely covering our operating costs. The fact is, we really don't know what the response will be like. We have an idea of what it might be like either way but we won't really be able to tell until things are up and running.
Thanks for everyone's support! This wouldn't have been able to happen without it!
We only need a fire inspection to complete our business application. And it was far less expensive than we had originally anticipated.
$22 for a "DBA" (Doing Business As)
Obtaining a Sales and Use tax number was free
$40 business license from the city
$25 Home business permit
$87 bucks! I was shocked!
We're also receiving free counseling from the Utah Small Business Development Center. They receive their funding from the State of Utah, the US Small Business Administration and local universities.
We've had one-on-one counseling sessions and the offer free* classes on just about every subject that would be beneficial for small business owners to know. (*the courses are free, the materials in the courses are not).
We had (and still have) tons of questions but now we have an educated, experienced ear to offer input and explanations for us.
We expect to have our official license in the next two weeks and the website up and running in almost 3 weeks. So we've begun developing our marketing campaign. The primary focus will be to develop a local client base and spread through out the neighboring states. As it is, having worked for Summerhays Music has been a big advantage for us, I now have relationships with every band director in the county. I've also been compiling a list of all the schools and band directors in 7 states. The plan is once we've established ourselves locally, we'll start a direct mailing session to the schools in the intermountain west in addition to internet advertising.
While the licensing costs were lower than we expected, I don't think we fully grasped the costs of business materials. We need, boxes, baggies, tubes, packing peanuts, labels and label makers, letter head, business cards, an additional phone line, fax machine, a new computer desk, filing cabinet... sweet frijoles batman! We had roughly $1000 allocated for start up and just getting the basics we're tapping out. There's still a couple of pieces of equipment that we'd like to get, as well as more raw materials.
So, while we had originally decided to not apply/take out business loans, we might end up taking out a small loan. But that's still up in the air.
And it's kinda nice to be an entrepreneur. There's a feeling of freedom and ownership that doesn't come with being an employee. Although, we were strongly advised for me to NOT quit my job until the business is providing a consistent supporting income.
Really?! Nah! You don't say!
The website is being designed by our Brother-in-law (Helen's sister's husband to be exact), he dabbles in the graphic arts and is a network technician or something like that for the University Valley State College. So we have full confidence in his abilities and he's been very professional in the handling of things thus far. Don't worry, I'll slip him a cool, crisp twenty for his labors.
So, that about sums things up to this point. We're at the nervous, anxious stage where we might be hugely successful or barely covering our operating costs. The fact is, we really don't know what the response will be like. We have an idea of what it might be like either way but we won't really be able to tell until things are up and running.
Thanks for everyone's support! This wouldn't have been able to happen without it!
posted by Mike at Thursday, September 14, 2006
1 Comments:
Looks like you need a comment on this post. Helen's sister's husband is accurate, network technician...not close. Buddy I'm a proffessional web developer who is majoring in graphic design. and the page will take more than three weeks as this week I haven't been able to work on it do to studying for an up coming test. We'll get you up and running. Also remember we don't have to push the sales portion live until you're ready for it. Also don't forget that if you want to really market on the internet I have a friend who his entire mission in life is to optimize your keywords for your website to get you ranked highly in search engines. OF course that's outside of the natural keyword ranking that I'll do for you.
Post a Comment
<< Home