As described in the previous blog post (“Starting My Small Business – Part 1: The Creative Side”), I’ve learned a lot establishing The Daily Artisan. While that part of the process decidedly was most enjoyable, the below items for “Part 2: The Business Side” were necessary, and actually enjoyable in their own way (and happily all have been completed)!
Here’s a list of items involved in starting The Daily Artisan:
- Entering into various agreements and contracts with vendors.
- Acquiring exclusive domains for thedailyartisan.com, thedailyartisan.net, and thedailyartisan.org.
- Applying for and obtaining a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN).
- Filing the necessary paperwork and receiving approval from the State of Florida for The Daily Artisan to operate as a Limited Liability Company (LLC).
- Applying for and obtaining approval from the Florida Department of Revenue to operate as a business that charges (and remits) sales tax on products sold in the online store.
- Acquiring items that will be needed for selling in the online store. Here’s a great example! I love note cards with rounded corners, but I’m unable to purchase them this way, so I’ll be manually rounding the corners of every note card. I quickly replaced my craft store, little corner rounder with this more “industrial” one that’s a lot easier on the hands. Who knew such a thing existed??
- Creating business accounts with social media platforms. I secured “thedailyartisan” for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube, although I’m actively starting out with just Instagram and Facebook.
- Setting up a chart of accounts for expenses and revenues and keeping organized records for the CPA at tax time.
- Evaluating product shipping options from various vendors. Do I go with destination, zone, flat rate, weight, dimensions, etc.?? This was by far the most challenging aspect of setting up the business. I obtained every size box available from the vendors I was considering; assembled the boxes in my house, and stuffed them with various sizes and amounts of products to see how much would fit in each box, and calculated the corresponding shipping options. Boxes – so many boxes – took over my house for a couple of weeks! I ultimately decided to go with a tiered, flat rate shipping approach based on the number of products purchased (details available on the store page).
Whew – I’ll stop there having now covered both the creative and the business sides to starting my small business! I’m happy these foundational business items are in place so the creative parts can take center stage with my time.
If you’ve started a small business (online or otherwise), which parts did you find most challenging? Most enjoyable? Please comment below so we all can learn from each other!
