Hunter 00:00:08 Welcome to the EntreLife podcast, live with your host, Hunter Haley, and co-host Tony Pimpo. Welcome, Tony.
Tony 00:00:17 Thank you, Hunter. Glad to be here.
Hunter 00:00:19 Well, Tony, today we're gonna talk a little bit about starting and or launching a new business or a side hustle or adventure. Have you ever wanted to start a business?
Tony 00:00:30 You know, I have. Yeah. It's always been something I've thought about. I've actually set up an LLC for a real estate endeavor. Haven't done much with it, but I do have a little experience in doing that. So, yeah.
Hunter 00:00:42 Well, today we're gonna talk a little bit about what it takes to get launched. And so this is kind of in line with some of the EntreLife sessions we've been teaching at our local church. But it's important because if you to launch something, you have to know what you're doing. You have to do it right because there are right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. And so many people feel defeated and they feel like a failure if they don't get it right on the first go. But the truth of the matter is, if you learn from your mistakes and you try and try again, eventually you'll get it right. But the goal with this podcast and our content in the session today is that we want to shorten that learning curve as much as possible. Right. Are you ready to dig into this? Let's do it! So one of the things that I think is very helpful is the SBA, that's the Small Business Association. Have you heard of them before?
Tony 00:01:33 I have, yes.
Hunter 00:01:34 Okay. So, me and you were going through this earlier, but there are 10 steps, to start your business. And, they have a website. If you go to sba.gov, just on their main homepage, at the very top it says, start your business in 10 steps. See the guide. So you just go to sba.gov and click that first button. And we'll try to maybe link to this in the show notes for you. But if you go there, it's got a really detailed explanation. So it's very top level, the 10 steps, which we'll go through briefly and kind of elaborate on a little bit. But then each one of them independently, you can click learn more and dig into more details. Like, for example, if you want to register your business and get your tax IDs and stuff like that where you click learn more, it'll actually take you to the websites and the links to set all that stuff up.
Hunter 00:02:30 And so, step one is conduct market research. You know, the Bible even talks about this is, if you're going build a tower, you need to sit down, count and count, count the cost, right? And so you don't want to just jump into it and say, well, I'm going to start this business doing blah, blah, blah, and like, have no idea what you're actually doing. Right? So what would you say are some key things, that people should consider before launching a business?
Tony 00:03:00 Well, I would say, you know, as part of conducting your market research, one of the aspects you want to look at is the, the profitability of that particular industry. So, different businesses have gross margins that that vary, right? So, there are certain businesses that are more profitable to get into. So, I think one of the decisions you have to make on the front end is really whether you're interested in doing volume or maybe higher profit per per unit if you're selling a certain product or if you're a certain a service industry, it just depends which, which field you're in. So, I think it kind of connects with what you're most passionate about, right?
Hunter 00:03:46 Yeah! That's a good point because you need to figure out the profitability of it. I was using the analogy the other day as far as you talk about volume. You know, if I buy an ink pin, you know, the thing is if you are in desperate need for an ink pin, what's the most you're willing to pay for this?
Tony 00:04:11 I don't know. A dollar?
Hunter 00:04:13 A Dollar. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, there's a limit. <laugh>, you know, you're not gonna buy 80 to $5 for this, like, you know,
Speaker 2 00:04:19 Off brand, not this one
Speaker 1 00:04:20 <laugh>, you know, Sharpie ink of Inkpen here. Right. You know, um, but the thing is, if I buy a container ship full of these right? Or, or a cargo container full of these, they come over on a container ship, how much do you think I can get the price for this for?
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Yeah, I don't know. Buy maybe 10 cents. Yeah, five,
Speaker 1 00:04:37 10 cents, maybe 15. So the margin is huge on something like that. But you have to buy a huge amount of volume. And you may say, wow, there's an opportunity. But the problem is, you know, if ink pins, obviously we know because mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, humans are humans and they like to write things that you will probably likely sell those. But there's also competition. Well, who else is buying container loads of ink pins and bring 'em over here? So by the time you have your shipping cost and your marketing cost and like the competition, and then sitting in your warehouse and then shrinkage because you know, the guy on the dock needing pin, so he borrowed one of yours to fill off the loading paper. Anyway, all these things, there's
Speaker 2 00:05:12 Always those people that try to take him. You gotta watch out for
Speaker 1 00:05:14 Those people. You gotta watch out for those people.
Speaker 2 00:05:15 I'm not, I'm not gonna name any names.
Speaker 1 00:05:17 That's right. That's right. Well, and that's what we talked about in our last session was integrity. And that was one of the things, have you ever taken an ink pen from work? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> people. That's right. People like slowly raised their hand guilty. Like, I didn't, I feel like a criminal. Now, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, but, uh, but anyway, so the thing is, you have to take all that into effect. So by the time you get that 10 or 15 cent ink pen may cost you like 80 or 90 cents. Right? And then you're like, oh man, now I've really gotta sell a lot of these to make profits. So you have to do a little bit of market research to kind of figure out, it may seem like, wow, there's a huge markup on these crazy ink pins, I'm gonna get in that business.
Speaker 1 00:05:52 But there's a lot more to it than that. And again, if you go to the website, uh, you, you can go into a lot more detail. It talks about, you know, uh, how to do market research to find the customers, you know, the demand, the market size, economic indicators, location. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> market saturation, how many people are, again, you know, right. Uh, doing this and how many people actually want this. Uh, and then pricing, you know, if you're selling your in pins for a dollar, but then somebody else, they're selling all theirs for 85 cents and they're just the same mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:06:19 <affirmative>. And some may have, you know, more pricing power, they're able to price you out just due to their volume know,
Speaker 1 00:06:26 Because know they bought 10 container ships there. Right. So, uh, so anyway, so it gives you a lot of good ideas on how to find information, uh, research, how to conduct focus groups or surveys, questionnaires, and then access information that's out there, uh, on the interwebs, uh, and other places that you can get information. I, I know like going to your local Chamber of commerce, uh, and asking questions, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative> research that way there's taking out, so finding someone who's in the industry in a non-competitive space. So like, if you're wanting to start an ice cream shop in Memphis, Tennessee, well, maybe you find someone, a friend of yours, or a friend of a friend who owns one in like Denver, Colorado, and be like, okay, I understand the market's gonna be a little different. It's a little colder up there, so maybe the winter's not as as good, but, um, for ice cream anyway.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 But, uh, you know what, tell me, what are some of the things I need to know about getting into this business? What are the suppliers, what are the things I, I call what I, when I'm looking to getting into a new business, I, I call my competition and play dumb. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I'll be like, oh, wow. So y'all sell these ink pins for a dollar? Wow. Okay. Well, how many do you have to buy to get 'em at a price where you can do that? Yeah. Really? Oh, we buy 'em, you know, 10,000 at a time. Really? Yeah. I'm getting like skew numbers. Like, if you're really good at that, you can,
Speaker 2 00:07:38 So who's the best supplier of these? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:40 Who's I've seen, like, I've seen so many different options out there. What's the best ones are, is this really the best? And if you, if you know what you're doing, you can, is it, you're just acting, you're playing dumb and acting like a detective, right? And, uh, you can do a lot of competitive analysis for free as long as you've got unlimited minutes on your phone plan. Right? <laugh>? Um, anyway, so it talks about a number of different things. Uh, it's got free small business data and trends. It's got links to a lot of like consumer credit data, uh, consumer price index. It's, but it breaks it down in a really good way. So, again, this sba, um, dot gov, uh, 10 steps that step one, they've got a lot more detail you can dive into. Uh, and number two is you need to write a business plan. Uh, Tony, have you ever written a business plan? Be honest.
Speaker 2 00:08:22 I have not.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 Yeah. Yeah. But no, I, I, I know you haven't written one, but you've probably come up one with one in your mind before. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Have you ever tried to sell something to someone, like a family member, get them someone to convince someone to buy something?
Speaker 2 00:08:35 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 1 00:08:36 So you probably strategize. You're like, okay, you've, you've, your brother's named Duncan. You're like, you're trying to sell him on an idea of something in your mind. You're, if you're trying to get your family sold on the idea of going on, let's say to Dollywood, you know, on vacation, and they're like, ah, we're not sure if we're on board or not. You're gonna, you're gonna, in your mind, you're gonna go down, down the list of things of like, you're gonna go do, Hey, here's all the benefits, you know, here's all the people involved. I've got the logistics figured out. Here's the price of what it costs for tickets. We can do this. Think about how much fun we're gonna have. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so really the lot of the same things carry over into a business plan, except it's, you know, maybe a little bit less fun <laugh>. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:09:14 <affirmative> a little more formal, little
Speaker 1 00:09:15 Bit more formal than going to Hollywood, but probably just as exciting as riding a roller coaster some days. <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:21 <laugh> Hunter. You might know a little something about that.
Speaker 1 00:09:23 That's right. The ups and the downs.
Speaker 2 00:09:25 We got 'em to go on the, a roller coaster when he didn't want to. I know I did it. See, I, Hey, we wrote a business plan for that <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:09:31 Yeah. They were conspiring against me, cuz I'm terrified.
Speaker 2 00:09:34 We worked,
Speaker 1 00:09:35 We worked on that. So they, their plan came to fruition. I wrote all of them except fun. But, uh, but anyway, creating a business plan is, is, is a very similar process, is you're trying to reach an objective. You're trying to reach a goal, and then, uh, that's to have a successful business, to meet your target customer's needs to make a profit, all these different things. So you just need to write that down on paper. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? And so, uh, you need to pick business plan that works for you. There's, there's several different ones. There's what they call the traditional business plan that's got, you know, all these, you know, pages and pages and pages of content. But for most small businesses, um, there's, there's like a one page plan that they actually have, uh, uh, open blueprints that you can download, uh, of these. Uh, but there's gonna be things like in the more formal plan, you're gonna have things like an executive summary, a company description, your market analysis of all the research that you've done, organization and management. You know, like, who's gonna be the ceo? It's gonna be me. Who's gonna be the CEO info, it's gonna be me. It's gonna, of course. Like, you're the only one doing this, right? Yes. All right. So go to the simple plan <laugh>. You don't need like this whole org chart, organization chart and everything.
Speaker 2 00:10:44 I am the C o cfo. F C T O C O O, this, that could be a
Speaker 1 00:10:48 Organization <laugh>, that could be, that could be a tongue twister. They're like, I'm seeing a common denominator, right? Um, so you got your service, uh, product line, your marketing and your sales plan. How are you gonna attract customers? How are you gonna fund this financial projections? How much you think you're gonna make, et cetera. Where's what they call the lean startup format, which is more of a one or two page kind of thing. It's like, okay, you know, what is your key activities? What are basically, what are you gonna be doing? We're gonna be buying ink pins and we're gonna be reselling them. Okay? You don't have to make this rocket science, right? You're just basically putting it on paper and, and laying it all out there. What are your key resources? Who are key partnerships? Uh, what is your key value proposition? You know, we're gonna sell ink pins, uh, at that, you know Right.
Speaker 1 00:11:32 Really good, right. At a, at a price that people can afford that's competitive in the marketplace. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, again, something that simple is, you know, is, is good. You have to start there. And then you have to, it sounds cliche, but you have to then add color to that. You can't just say, we're gonna have the greatest cheapest awesomest ink pins ever. Right? Right. Well, that's your value proposition or that's, that's your statement. But then you gotta figure out all the ways, ways to make that happen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And if you can't detail that on paper, then it's gonna be hard to convince other people to get on board with your
Speaker 2 00:11:59 Business. Why should they go with you?
Speaker 1 00:12:00 Why should they go with you?
Speaker 2 00:12:01 Why should they, why are you gonna be any different?
Speaker 1 00:12:03 Yeah. Yeah. Why should a banker loan you the money to do this? Why should you know, you know, people get on board with your idea. If you can't put it down on paper and just say, we're gonna have the awesome mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the bestest, you know, the cheapest and the be you, you can't have all those things. Right. You have to have a really solid plan to do that anyway. So it's got a, a lot of different things, different revenue streams, the different way, which is simply the different ways you're gonna make money. Again, without going into too much detail, it's got a lot of information about how to write your business plan, and you can go as detailed as you want, or you can be pretty simple, but at least you've got something on paper, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, and then step number three is it talks about funding your business. Cha ch cha-ching. I like that. <laugh>. And so, uh, they've got different ways to do that. What are some of the different types? Uh, it's different ways that you can, that you can fund a business.
Speaker 2 00:12:54 So, um, one would be self-funding, right? If there's any millionaires in the audience, you know, <laugh>, but it doesn't always take that, right? It, it depends. That's where your business plan comes at. What kind of industry are you going into? Um, investors, which would be, you know, the key, uh, audience of your business plan. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> would be investors in that case. And then of course there's loans. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, now those can be from multiple sources, but um, obviously with the traditional bank, you know, there's more requirements, et cetera. They're gonna wanna see, um, usually a track record mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, before they do something with your particular,
Speaker 1 00:13:36 Or like strong assets. It's like, okay, did you have other things? So with with loans, it may not be a loan directly to that business. It may be, Hey, I've got a house that I've got equity in. I'm gonna take collateral, I'm gonna take, yeah, I'm gonna put that up as collateral, or do a equity line of credit or something like that. Your investors may be people that you give either an equity percentage mm-hmm. <affirmative> or, uh, you may take, um, there's, you know, hard money loans where people will give you money on a short term basis, which, you know, they're also called loan sharks sometimes. It's not all, they're not all that way, but you have to be very careful on a solid plan
Speaker 2 00:14:07 To find the right ones. That's right.
Speaker 1 00:14:09 <laugh> have to have a solid plan so you don't get sucked up into paying high interest. Absolutely. And then the self funding is really interesting because, uh, believe it or not, there's a book I really like, um, uh, what is the guy author's name? It's something gbo, I don't remember the first name, but it's, uh, the a hundred dollars startup. If you just google the a hundred dollars startup, uh, it'll, it'll come up. But, uh, he, and he also has another one that says idea to income in 27 days. You know, basically side hustle, uh, is what it, what he talks about. But in those books, he talked about how you, it is very practical to start most businesses. Did you look it up? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah, Chris Gebo. That's right. Here we go. Thank you. Appreciate that, Tony. He's keep he's keeping me detailed here.
Speaker 2 00:14:50 <laugh>, someone's gotta do it.
Speaker 1 00:14:51 That's right. Given the, all the information here, but, um, but you can bootstrap something, right? You know, from the ground up. Yeah. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to start with a million dollars or, you know,
Speaker 2 00:15:03 Maybe scale it, you know? Yes.
Speaker 1 00:15:05 Yeah. I mean, cuz like you, you, if you want to have the world's largest lemonade company, start with lemonade, stand out in your front yard, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, try that. If you can master that and do well, then go on to round two, maybe do a pop-up shop, or, you know, this could apply to coffee shops. There's someone we know right now that's doing this,
Speaker 2 00:15:23 And it's already, it's a good idea just because, um, you don't want to get into much over your head anyway. Like, you may get into something and find out you don't like it. Yes. And that's okay. But if you started out small, it's not as big of a deal. Right. So I think seeing if you can do it on a small scale before going big is probably a good idea.
Speaker 1 00:15:43 Yeah. Well, you know, because, and I love that because you give, you give yourself the freedom to fail. Most small businesses do fail, and it's, and it's hard to find sometimes. Maybe we'll do another episode on this about finding the right business idea, right?
Speaker 2 00:15:56 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:15:57 And so there are ways you can strategically do that, and that is part of your market research, hopefully as you're evaluating yourself and the market and everything. But at the same time, things just don't work out sometimes or you, something you think you wanna do, you may think the idea of running a food truck's great and then you realize, man, I
Speaker 2 00:16:13 Just, I hate this <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:16:14 I hate this. I hate flipping burgers. Yeah. You know, even or running a taco truck or whatever, even if it's my own, right? Yep. And, um, or you may need a pivot, or the market may change, or situations may change, or life, personal life circumstance may change. Yeah. All of that, uh, is subject to that. So all that being said is, if you start with a, a start small and learn to scale, that was a good point. You, you give yourself so much more freedom and you have the ability to fail and try again. Because ultimate failure, what makes you a failure is not that you failed once mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's that you never, or that you stopped trying. Right. That's, that's the
Speaker 2 00:16:52 True definition. I, I think I heard this somewhere, I don't know where I heard it, but it was so good. Uh, most people think about, you know, well what if I fail? But what if you succeed? All you really do have to to do is succeed once. Right? And I think when you look at it like that, it totally changes your fear aspect. It's not like, oh, I'm afraid of failing. Well, this could be the time that I succeed. Yes. You know? Yes.
Speaker 1 00:17:13 Oh, I love that. Anyway, I'm always jumping out into new ideas, so I'm always looking for an excuse to start a new business. <laugh>. Uh, but anyway, all right. Moving along, we get, we're getting off topic here, but this is all good stuff, but number four is pick your business location. And this is gonna be, you know, determined on what kind of business Do you need a brick and mortar location? Uh, do you, can you do this online right. With a, um, do you just, you know, start an Etsy page or a Shopify account mm-hmm. <affirmative> and you can start selling your product online or
Speaker 2 00:17:40 Squarespace store square?
Speaker 1 00:17:42 No, space store. I just built a Squarespace site in a weekend for a guy the other day. Yeah. And, um, and he's off the races. He's already, uh, we started it on SAT Friday night or Saturday, and by Sunday he had his first customer. That's awesome. And so there's power in that, uh, in, in just the tools are out there. So, uh, don't feel like you have to go rent a big office space to get started. You can get a co-working space, or you can work outta your garage or your, your, maybe your parents' garage. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or a, a friend's garage or, you know, maybe a big tree out in the park or something, I don't know. But anyway, but your business can live online and you're, and you're, you can mainly work from Starbucks, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that can be your office
Speaker 2 00:18:19 For a long
Speaker 1 00:18:19 Oh yeah. So anyway, so you have to pick your location and there's, and it's got a lot more information about that, of, of how to determine where's the best place for you to end up for your business, the type of business, et cetera. And we're gonna kind of breeze through some of the rest of these because we'll go deeper into this, uh, or let you go deeper into this, uh, further on. But, uh, number five is you need to choose your business structure. And this is important because there's, there's a lot of different kinds of structures, uh, out there. Uh, there's, there's, there's some common different ones. What, what are some of the common, um, different types of business structures?
Speaker 2 00:18:54 So, um, one of the aspects, well, I'll go into some of them, but I think the basis for deciding which one of these structures mainly has to do with tax implications mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So, um, as we go through those, that's something to keep in mind. And liability. And liability, right? Right. Exactly. So, um, there is sole proprietorship, right? Which is the easiest way to start a business. It's just,
Speaker 1 00:19:17 It's basically
Speaker 2 00:19:18 You, you and you alone <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:19:19 You, you, you doing it like even on your regular, you don't even have to have a e i n number. If, if you, if you buy a, a box of a Snickers from Sam's right? In bulk, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and you take those to your workplace and you put put 'em up and you, you
Speaker 2 00:19:33 Sell, you're
Speaker 1 00:19:33 A sole proprietor. You are a sole
Speaker 2 00:19:34 Proprietor. It sounds really fancy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:19:36 <laugh>. Yeah. If you mow your na your, your yard and your neighbor's yard, and you call it a lawn business, you're a sole proprietor. Proprie, right? Proprie. Exactly. You can grow that very large as well. But it, it's a very simple business structure, which means that, you know, you are the face of the company, the company is, it's
Speaker 2 00:19:50 Just as big as you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:19:51 You, you're the company and the company is you basically. Right?
Speaker 2 00:19:54 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:19:55 So then moving on from that, you get, uh, partnerships. Yep. Um, which are, are pretty common. Uh, which is like, say me and you, Tony wanted to go in and we wanted to be 50, 50 or 70 mm-hmm. <affirmative> 30, or
Speaker 2 00:20:05 I feel like a lot of like lawyers and, uh, that type of field uses partnerships. Yeah. They'll
Speaker 1 00:20:11 Do a lot of partnerships. We do that. Um, and sometimes you can combine these business models because like, you know, for example, like you may want to have a partnership because it's in, in, for instance, in the state of Tennessee, there's no excise and franchise tax on as of right now, per what my CPA told me the other day, but I misheard him. So do your own research. Um, this is not tax or legal or, uh, accounting advice, but, uh, but he was saying, you know, if you have a partnership, it's not subject to excise and franchise tax, which is five or 6%. Right. But an llc, which is what, what is an llc? It's a
Speaker 2 00:20:44 Limited liability company.
Speaker 1 00:20:46 Very good. He passed the pop quiz here, <laugh>. So a limited liability company is a company, so it creates its own entity so that while you may own the company, the company is separate from you. Yes. And this gives you a lot of protections, right? Yes. But for that privilege, there's a franchise tax, uh, an excise tax for a limited by liability companies in the state of Tennessee. But for instance, if you have a partnership, so like, say me and my wife, uh, have a partnership, our partnership can own the llc. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> have a hundred percent ownership of LLCs. We have a 50 50 partnership that owns a hundred percent of the
Speaker 2 00:21:21 LLC can nest those different types. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:21:23 So basically you're layering them in. So it, let's say that the LLC makes, you know, a million dollars and they're gonna pay 5% tax on that, but your partnership assesses a management fee of $999,000 on the LLC and moves the money, which it's more complicated in this. Definitely. Yeah. If you're moving that kind of money, talk to your CPA <laugh> and your, and your attorney and your banker and all those people. But basically you can theoretically move that into the partnership
Speaker 2 00:21:51 Where it's taxed differently,
Speaker 1 00:21:52 Where it's taxed differently, but you still have the protections of the LLC so that, you know, it protects if someone falls in your place of business or gets hurt, they are suing the company and the company's assets, not necessarily all your personal assets. Which again, there's, you need general liability insurance. Yes. And you need a, you know, legal counsel if you do have a situation that comes up. And that's not a foolproof guarantee, but it's a very good step.
Speaker 2 00:22:16 I think one of the cool things with an llc, again, we're not tax experts, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative> or any of that, but, um, is that you're not taxed twice mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So with an llc, it passes through. Yes. So, um, your ownership level of that llc, so you know, you could be 50 50, you could be 10%, whatever the case may be, that, um, income is taxed by yourself by personal
Speaker 1 00:22:43 Personal level.
Speaker 2 00:22:43 Yes. At your personal level. So when you get a K one in that, that
Speaker 1 00:22:47 Case, whereas when you get into corporations with like C Corp and S Corp and B Corp and all these different things, right? Um, those are taxed differently where you may have a corporate tax, right? But then the individual partners are the people that own that may get a secondary tax. So there's sometimes some, what's called double taxation.
Speaker 2 00:23:03 You get dividends, for instance, right. From your corporation, then you would have to pay taxes on that, but it's already taxed at a corporate level. Right? So really at a smaller scale, it doesn't make so much sense for,
Speaker 1 00:23:15 For most people either. Um, either, uh, a, a solo par, uh, proprietorship partnership or LLC is about as far as most businesses go, right. Um, until you get a little bit larger. Like my dad, he's a part owner of a insurance company and they actually have five different companies. They have a partnership and a couple LLCs and a, I think an S Corp and a C Corp, cuz there's a lot of liability and you're moving things around and there's a lot of different moving pieces. And so, uh, so there's a lot of reasons why you'd wanna do that. And there's also, uh, there's a lot more things. There's like things like cooperatives, nonprofits, um, all all kinds of different things. So anyway, they, they go into details on that. And here we are saying we weren't gonna go deep in the details and here we are, but
Speaker 2 00:23:56 We're in the weeds.
Speaker 1 00:23:57 That's right. <laugh>, we love getting off in the weeds. Let's get out <laugh>. There's a lot to it, but Absolutely. But again, if you go to the website and research
[email protected], it's got lots of detailed explanations and links for you to learn more. Um, number six is choose your business name. So again, we're, that's the fun one. This is the fun one, <laugh>. Well, I find this is probably the most difficult for me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I, it's easier for me to name somebody else's company. You can tell me, hunter, I'm starting a business and here's my business idea. And I'll be like, oh, here's five names and they're all awesome. Yeah. If I go to name my own amazing company, like I have like some of the goofiest dumbest names, I, it's, it's horrible. And I'm like, I don't like this. This is terrible. I, it's like, I I can't do it. You ever tried to name something?
Speaker 2 00:24:42 Yeah, I've been a part of some naming decisions on, uh, uh, my company that I, I work with. So we kind of all sat in a room and just started googling things and looking up synonyms and figuring out, you know, do you want it to be one word? Uh, do you want it to be multiple words? Is it, is it a descriptive name or is it completely unrelated to what, you know, there's, those are all the questions you can more abstract, you can act. Yeah. Like abstract, you know. Um, so I think it can be fun. It just depends, uh, you know, depends what you're, what you're aiming
Speaker 1 00:25:14 For, right? Yeah. Who your market is. Who your market is Yeah. What you're trying to do. But the thing is, a couple of key things is make it simple. If it's too, if it's too cl if it's too cute Yeah. And like, you know, funny or
Speaker 2 00:25:26 Something, especially if you're real serious industry, you know what I mean? Yes. If you're a lawyer, I <laugh> you don't, I don't want you to be trendy. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna That's
Speaker 1 00:25:33 Right. Uh, you, you, you have to keep in mind that, but you, at the end of the day, you want it to be clear to your customer what you do. If you say, you know, our name is, uh, uh, I don't know, I, I can't even come up with something, but like, you know, Royal Blue, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, what does Royal Blue do? Is this a cruise line? Yeah. Is this, um, you know, a fabric company that only specialize in it in blue fabric? Is this, you know, a, you know, succumb some kind of sports team. Is this like a, you know, police foundation? Yeah. Is this a royal, uh, you know, academy, a war? I, I, you know, I, what is Royal Blue? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we don't know. Right? But if you say, you know, Royal Blue Ocean Charter, a deep sea fishing charters, ah, I know now that you're fishing charter company, right?
Speaker 2 00:26:23 That's some kind of a descriptor to it.
Speaker 1 00:26:25 Yes. They, they kind of get that. So, um, unless you're Nike or Apple or someone who can have that kind of more ambiguous name and you've built the brand around it, most people succeed better with a somewhat descriptive
Speaker 2 00:26:38 Name. Yeah. And even now we know Apple as Apple, but it was Apple computer when it started. That's
Speaker 1 00:26:43 True. Yeah. They simplify, you know, what they, what they do. Anyway, moving along here, number seven, uh, is register your business. There's a lot of complicated detail in that. It's, it can feel overwhelming, but it's actually not. You just take it step by step. Go to the website, it's got all the details on how to do that. Step eight is get federal and state tax IDs. It's important to do that. Uh, again, if you are not sure about this, you need to talk with a CPA or an accountant or a lawyer or whoever. Um, but
Speaker 2 00:27:11 All the
Speaker 1 00:27:12 Above. All of the above. But if you go to the website, it'll actually drill down and tell you Okay, what kind of industry you're in, what do you need, uh, how do you get it? Where do you go to find it? Even down to your state, uh, getting your e i n number, which is your employer identification type. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, number
Speaker 2 00:27:27 State, but you need to open a bank account.
Speaker 1 00:27:29 Exactly. Uh, which, um, number nine is apply for licenses and some permits. And then number 10 is open a bank account, a business open account bank account. So very good, because you wanna keep your business money and your personal money separate. Yeah. But these are some of the more fundamentals, the 10 steps to starting your business. And I think that this is a very solid guide. I mean, I mean, wouldn't you
Speaker 2 00:27:53 Say Oh, yeah, yeah. Very, um, comprehensive, easy to understand. Uh, because it doesn't throw it all at you right at the front. You know, you can kind of start high level and drill into it, um, especially as you're going through those steps mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, um, yeah, I would highly recommend it to anyone who's even thinking about it. Just take a look at it. It can take away some of that fear of what do I do? You have a roadmap, you know,
Speaker 1 00:28:17 I like that because, you know, a lot of people don't ever start because they're afraid of the unknown. Right. And so I like how you mentioned that because if you can conquer, if information is power mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if, if you, if you can just look at it, even if it feels complicated and a little overwhelming, but if you just know what it is Yep. It's like, okay, this seems way more manageable. Way more tackable.
Speaker 2 00:28:39 Absolutely. Yeah. And do it in chunks, you know?
Speaker 1 00:28:43 Absolutely. The other thing is, instead of starting your own business, you could always look into buying into a business or participating in a business or just starting a side hustle a little bit on the side and kind of experiment. You don't have to dive in, you know, way deep to start with. You can start small and grow it. And that's, that's most of us. We live in America. I mean, some people listening may not be, but, and that's okay. But just about anywhere in the world, you can start your own enterprise at some level. Yeah. That's what you ended up buying into a company. I
Speaker 2 00:29:14 Did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:29:15 Yeah. And so, uh, you got to bypass some of these <laugh> some of these steps. Um, yeah. But at the same time, you know, however you get into business, it's good to know, um, you know what all goes into it. Even if you have partners that handle a lot of this, it, this is just good information for everyone to know. So I highly recommend, again, go to sba.gov and then go to the, uh, business guide. And so if you can do that, it's 10 steps to start your business. It'll get you on track. And uh, it actually even has links to like SBA funding and grants and loans. And they even have, uh, links to like local, um, I forgot what they call 'em, like counselors. Counselors or state. Well that too, but like counselors and stuff. Or you can actually, I think schedule a free meeting or a free call with someone.
Speaker 1 00:30:01 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To sit down with. I did that one time, uh, and they did it through my local business chamber and we were able to get started so you can get help, um, getting started. So you don't have to do it all on your own. You can do this. It's a great resource people, plenty of people who have done it before you. So anyway, with that, thank you so much for your time listening to us and thank you, Tony, for joining me on this episode today and will be back with, uh, more content to help you, uh, grow your business and be a blessing to the kingdom of God.
