Finally, some progress! In August progress was slowed down by typical life issues that got in the way of starting our Internet-based businesses. Most of those issues have been resolved and our time has opened up substantially. When September started, I was hoping that Tammy and I would have more time to study our Internet Business Mastery Academy (IBMA) materials and begin to take more meaningful action. Well, that’s exactly what has happened. As Tammy already reported (see The Birth of a Business), she filed the proper articles of organization to create a legal entity for her business. When she got her official document confirming the creation of Earthen Motion, LLC, we were jumping with excitement. I filed the same paperwork about a week later. Last Thursday I got my lovely document and thus, New Mind Insight, LLC was born.

Business By The Numbers

That’s one step among many. We still have a lot to do so we’re taking it one step at a time. We’re hard at work trying to figure out how our respective business websites will function and look. We will soon be obtaining our EINs (Employee Identification Numbers), along with any other licenses and/or permits as required by our state and local authorities. We’re digging into tax and legal considerations and writing down any questions we still need answered.

At this stage, we’re doing a lot of head-scratching trying to figure out exactly what we need to be doing each step of the way. IBMA is great for helping us stay focused and moving forward with definite action steps which prevent us from giving up. They offer specific information when that’s appropriate, but some issues vary according to the laws of each state. So they can’t be more specific where some of the details are concerned. However, there are always other resources you can use to help with such details. For instance, Tammy and I had a meeting with a business counselor at our local Small Business Development Center. [In the US, click here to find one near you] The counselors offer free advice and will sit down and talk with you for free. The particular gentleman who we met with wasn’t all that helpful with our really specific questions, but we got a lot of booklets, brochures, and checked out some material from their resource library. So, overall, it wasn’t a wasted trip.

Not all SBDC counselors are the same. So if you have a center near you, I highly recommend sitting down with a counselor. The man we met with was very friendly and seemed willing to spend an unlimited amount of time with us…at no charge. It’s definitely a place to start…and did I mention that it’s free!

The Excitement is Building

Soon, Tammy and I will be paying a friendly visit to a business lawyer and accountant. We think they’re going to be one of the best sources for specific information relative to our county and state, and to our business tax issues. I’ve always heard that a good lawyer and accountant are an entrepreneur’s best friends when starting a business. We’re planning to open our business checking accounts as soon as we get our EINs. So I’m hoping that in the next month, we’ll have more of the nuts-and-bolts paperwork issues out of the way and we can begin moving forward with our websites. We’ve secured our URLs and we’re exploring our hosting options. We are already familiar with web hosts such as Aplus.net (through which this site is hosted) and Host Gator; both solid choices for general blog hosting but we haven’t looked into their business plans yet. We’re also examining self-employment health insurance to see what our options are. Each month we’re making more and more progress and the excitement is building. No official launch dates to announce yet, but we’re getting closer every day. Stay tuned…