Our Rockin’ Update

Did you miss last week’s update?

Well, we seemed to have turned a pretty cool corner on our journey to getting our businesses started. We have finally waded through all the legalities and paperwork! Now, everything is all “official” and our businesses are separate legal entities with their own bank accounts, licenses, and permits. As Scott said last week, we’re planning on actually launching the sites in January. Scott’s business, New Mind Insight LLC will be focused on the “motivation and behavior niche,” while my business, Earthen Motion LLC will be focused on the “eco-friendly living” niche. It’s a huge relief to have all that not-so-fun stuff out of the way so we can move on to the more creative, hands-on, interesting tasks involved in getting the websites up and running. So, here’s an update on what we got accomplished this week and what fun stuff we plan to tackle next week. Also, a little more detail about my current job situation, or lack thereof…

Goals we accomplished this week:

• Registered with the Department of Taxation
• Signed up for hosting for our business sites
• Installed WordPress
• Installed the Headway Theme
• Niche and keyword research
• Blog design

Registering Our Businesses with the Department of Taxation

After talking with a CPA last week, we were ready to register our businesses with the Virginia Department of Taxation. Fortunately, we were able to get that done online and the process was fairly quick and painless. I think most states probably offer the option of registering online now. To find out, you would just do a search for your state’s department of taxation website and follow the instructions for registering a new business. Basically, the process involves telling Uncle Sam that you have or will be starting a new business, what type of business it is, whether or not you’ll have employees, and who should be contacted when the state wants to take their portion of your profits.

When you register your business, you’ll have to designate a NAICS code to describe the type of business you’re operating.  The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS, pronounced Nakes), is a standard set of numerical codes used to classify business types.  You can find a database of the codes on the NAICS website.

The online registration process also allowed us to register for the taxes we’ll need to be responsible for. This will vary depending on where you live and what type of business you operate. Since we have an LLC and we’re going to be selling online, we registered for Pass Through Entity tax and Sales and Use Tax. Registering for the Sales & Use tax is what allows you to collect tax when you sell a product to someone in your own state. It’s also how you get a reseller’s permit. If you have any plans to buy physical products from wholesalers that you will resell, you’ll need a sales & use tax ID number or reseller’s permit. Different states call it by different names. Basically, any legit wholesaler will require you to have this number before they’ll sell you anything at wholesale.

When we finished filling out the online form, we immediately got all our state account numbers. Gotta’ love the Internet!

Hosting for Our Business Websites

We both used GoDaddy as the registrar for our business domains. Scott decided to get his hosting through Bluehost, and I stuck with HostGator.  Both seem to have decent reputations. A friend and online entrepreneur recommended Bluehost to Scott. I stuck with HostGator because I was already familiar with them, and because they offset their carbon footprint with certified renewable energy credits (REC’s). Not the perfect eco-friendly solution, but at least a step in that direction.

Installing WordPress and Headway

A couple of weeks ago we were shopping around for WordPress themes and had narrowed it down to four. We decided to go with Headway Theme for its drag & drop customization and a ton of other features. But mostly the drag & drop thing. I mean, how cool is that? If you haven’t already, you can check out a video of the new Headway release here. The WordPress install was easy enough. Many hosting plans now include Fantastico, which makes the installation so easy, even a caveman could do it. However, if you’ve never done it before you might find this quick tutorial by Stephan Nilsson helpful.

Niche and Keyword Research

As we move forward, we’ll get into more detail about what kind of research needs to be done and what resources we used to do ours. We began the process this week, mostly using the Google Adwords free keyword research tool. We also started studying other sites in our niches for market research and to learn what we can from sites that are already successful. Why re-invent the wheel, right?

Blog Design

We started work this week on brainstorming the functionality of our blogs. Again, we scoped out some of the blogs in our niches to get a better idea of what we like and don’t like. Looking at other blogs in the same niche is also a good way to start figuring out what major categories you’ll need for your content. And, by reading comments on those blogs, you can get valuable feedback from your future customers before you even get started! Of course, we want our blogs to be unique but looking at what’s already out there is a good way to get the wheels turning in the early stages of designing your site.

A Not-Too-Revealing Update on my Job Situation…or Lack Thereof

In my August Update post, I hinted at the fact that I was going through an interesting turn of events with my “day job.” At the time, I couldn’t go into much detail. I still can’t go into all the details, but I haven’t worked since the end of August due to a work-related injury. The good part of the situation is that it’s given me more time to work on getting our businesses started. The bad part is…well, pain isn’t much fun, and having no income kinda’ sucks (Did you hear Christmas is next month? How’d that happen?!)

Now, your initial reaction might be that you think I’m lucky because I got out of the “Rat Race” and that’s what I wanted, right? Well, one thing you should know about me is I’m somewhat of a control freak and I like for things to happen on my own terms. This didn’t happen on my terms. Our plan was that we’d both keep at the “day jobs” until our Internet businesses were making enough money for us to quit. When the time was right. When we were ready. But it didn’t happen that way, and because of the situation (and these are the details I can’t really go into yet), I’ve had to apply for at least 5 jobs every week since I’ve been out. Isn’t that kind of ironic? So, depending on how the planets align I may be re-entering the Rat Race at any given time. That is, unless I can get my business running and profitable really quickly. Wish me luck!

Our Goals for Next Week

With the holidays coming up, we’re trying to be realistic about what we’ll be able to accomplish next week. It’ll be a hectic week but we plan to keep moving forward. Hopefully, we’ll at least be able to…

• Keep working on the appearance and functionality of our sites
• Continue studying at Internet Business Mastery Academy (By the way, if you’ve been wanting more in-depth info about that, we posted our Internet Business Mastery Academy Mid-Term Review this week)
• “Experiment” with Headway (because “play with our new toy” doesn’t sound enough like work)
• I will be working on my monetization plan for Earthen Motion. Particularly, learning more about buying from wholesalers through Worldwide Brands.
• We will be eating more turkey than any two people have a right to.

If there’s any particular part of this process you’d like us to write more about, let us know!

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