Starting off with domains and email

I've always wanted to start a business for myself, as my dad did and my brother did as well. I knew that if I were to start a business that it would be something I did on my spare time initially and finally grow into it. There are a lot of people that would disagree with me on my approach, but in my situation, I figured that this would be the best scenario.

One of the biggest worries that I have in starting this sucker up is the seperation of my work (as a corporation) and myself as a person. This implies that I want as much protection from my company and my personal life. Furthermore, I want financial independence for both my company and my personal life as well.

This works just fine, but unfortunately for most of us, we dont just get handed seed money for our companies without a hitch. Some people borrow money (be it from an external investor or their own assets), or personally invest into their company. Personally, I'm putting some personal money into my company to get started off.

First thing is getting a domain and getting a site up and running. I've decided to go with GoDaddy to get my domain, not so much because of their pricing or marketing (girls), rather they have other services that I really like, such as dedicated virtual servers (which I will get to in a bit), and I'd like to have things consolidated.

I decided to host my email through GoDaddy for fairly cheap (around $30 a year at the time of this writing), and get a pretty good deal on a dedicated virtual server. I like to have ultimate control of my server when it comes to hosting a website and any other applications that I need running for the success of my operations. It's a bit more then just shared hosting, but I dont mind paying more for complete control.

There is a lot more things to do before I can call my company "up and running." Legal papers, tax papers, incorporation papers, supplies, hardware, software, vaporware (just kidding), just to name a few. I have a lot of stuff to get done and buy (or borrow) to get this sucker going, but looking out for deals is imperative.

I hope to go over a few items in the future, specifically source control, platform choice (for software), marketing (including blogs and search engines), target industries to name a few.

This is an exiting time and I really want to be part of making my slice of the world a better place. It will be a great learning experience trying to get from here to there....read more!

A new beginning

I hope to really keep this blog up and running as a chronicle of my new business. I will be incorporating soon and hope to venture off into a new era of my life.

I currently have a full time job and intend to nurse this company into a full fledged income machine so that I can focus on my dreams. I will be referencing resources such as the 'Going Independent' yahoo group, Bob Walsh's Micro ISV book, Joel Spolsky's blog, and Eric Sink on the Business of Software, among others.

I hope to go over topics such as incorporation and legal issues, accounting, marketing, sales, work life balance, development processes and everything else that makes a small company tick. Initially, I will be doing consulting as my bread and butter for my company, and hopefully launching a product/service in the near future... but that's a little secret!

I hope that you can find this blog interesting and that it may serve some service to you getting started, or as a comic relief as you see me struggle through this endeavour.

I thank the Man upstairs for giving me this opportunity, my wife for her continuing support and my family and friends for guidance and encouragement.

Above all, let's remember that the main thing is that the Main thing is the main thing....read more!