Any entrepreneurs here? Maybe even some from the US or Canada? Me and a friend are starting to get into this field. We are currently in the process or starting a business club at our university that focuses on entrepreneurship. We both had our own small business's before and we like the idea so much that we want to get others started on it, too. Currently I am contemplating on how I can start a business later on in my life and what exactly we will do. We are already learning a lot in the process of founding our student club (and business) and it's been an amazing ride so far. It's incredible how many people you get to know and how many connections you make if you just get out and ask people for help or information. Who's in the same boat or who has already successfully (or unsuccessfully) founded a business? Are there any stories that you may want to share? Tips, experience, advice?
Know what you want to do before trying to do it and definitely get legal advice if you do not have an extensive legal background.
This is a very serious and complex undertaking. I have created several companies. Currently I run two concurrently. This is not an occupation for the lazy, weak of will, those with compassion for rivals, or those looking to pay employees a great / fair wage. A business owner and an entrepreneur are not the same thing. Being an entrepreneur is a mindset, a lifestyle. Many people own a nail salon or some sort of mindless business that makes meager money, but never does anything extremely profitable. A plumber does not make an entrepreneur. You would simply be a business owner. You have two routes. Creating and selling businesses, or destroying other businesses with your own. There is also the rare novel and new idea entrepreneur. I am not one of those. I am neither inventor nor scientist. Being an american entrepreneur is far different than being one in the rest of the world; in fact in many countries that behaviour would be seen as obscenely hostile and possibly illegal. In short, aggression and the desire to destroy your competition are rewarded in the US. Let me be short but to the point, you want to be the only person in charge. Legality of multiple owner companies can be a bitch. Depending on the business type, the other owners can force / buy you out. I recommend you create a corporation and sell them shares. As to tips and advice: Never go into business with friends or family. NEVER. Be the clear legal owner of the company, don't have a minority partner. He can sue you over profit splitting. Legally separate all private assets from company assets. Mixing them opens you to lawsuits to take property that is at dispute or is in doubt if the company fails. Say your wife writes the check for the company, simply doing that opens her to lawsuit as she was acting as an executive capacity. Always have a plan and cut off point. If the business doesn't meet expectations after x amount of time, sell it or liquidate it. The worst thing is to have a marginally profitable business for a long time, or worse, one you feel personally invested in and pour personal assets into. Never hire your wife in any capacity, because if you need to replace or fire her your marriage is over. Never go into the restaurant business, 80% of them fail within a year. Never buy your wife a business, because she will become emotionally attached to the employees and the clients. Have an established lawyer Have an established accountant Employees: If you need a full time worker, hire them on a contract basis. It has health care / insurance benefits. Destructive to society, but it's the norm for business now. Money: You need money to make money, it's that simple. Broke ass? Sorry. Never borrow money from loved ones or other family. Never. Loans: You'll have to secure it with personal property or have more money in the bank than the loan amount. Need 100K? Better have 500k in the bank. Experience: Expect to work 365/24/7, expect to lose friends as you have no time for social life. Expect to run into terrible people who will try to ruin you because you are competition. Expect to have companies fail Be willing to take risks, that is where profit is. Now as to banding people together... Don't waste people's lives as it has real consequences. If someone quits a shitty job to work at company X, and you never get anywhere and fold, his life is ruined. Never solicit investment from people who clearly cannot stand to lose the money. This is crucial. If someone invests 10K and they can barely spare 10K, they will be all over you about profits, losses, etc. Never solicit desperate people. Make your proposal for your business, if people agree it's a good idea make them invest. If a person has money at stake, they will treat it seriously and work harder. Formation of business. 1. Have a laywer do it 2. Have a laywer do it 3. Have a laywer do it If you do it wrong, you open yourself to a lot of attacks or even ouster. Make sure you have it clear who is in charge, and that they are getting SHARES in exchange for the money. Shares, not a percent of profit. Make sure they can't sell the shares for X amount of time. Make sure you have a majority controlling interest unless you want to be kicked out by everyone once you start to make good money. Never purchase assets with personal credit. Ever. Never mortgage your house on a "feeling". No real business plan + going on emotion / mandate from God is the best way to lose your house. Notice& Disclaimer: business tips Please carefully review the following before using this Site. You hereby acknowledge businesses are considered to be of a speculative nature and because of this may carry an exceptionally high level of risk. You should always remember that markets crash, successful companies go into bankruptcy, products can become obsolete and talented individuals can leave the company or even unexpectedly expire; any of these instances can utterly hurt your intended investment and leave you holding an empty bag that may have been filled with your life savings. The contents of this post are general commentary and under no circumstance should be considered investment advice. By using this Site, you hereby warrant and guarantee that you are personally responsible for obtaining adequate investment advice (ie.from a trusted financial advisor) prior to making any investment decision. It is your responsibility to maintain a balanced portfolio that will meet or exceed your investment objectives. The recommendations (business tips) provided by this Site should never be considered as the sole or final source of information on which you would base your final decision. You should research and seek professional investment advice from a qualified financial advisor before executing any investment transaction. We recommend that if any such part of your investment portfolio is allocated towards business, speculation and growth investments, it should only contain funds that you are prepared to lose in their entirety. Youare solely responsible and you alone bear the risk of all transactions that you enter.
Any attorney worth a damn will never never never ever ever ever give free advice , even to family or friends outside of a client relationship as it opens them to lawsuit. "Think I can legally build a shed there?" You say you see no problem. Shed partly on neighboring property, it's also built too close to the edge and will need to be removed or moved. "You said it was fine, I am suing you" Can happen, does happen, will happen. Don't be surprised if your own blood sues you. Happens every day.
I mostly agree with everything else you said, except for this. This can get you in trouble as more and more jurisdictions are cracking down on businesses improperly treating those who are legally defined as employees as contractors instead. It does reinforce the "get a lawyer" advice though.
That's why you have a contract and they assume the liability. They would be acting as a company with one employee (themselves) and can only sue the company they work for (themselves.)
That is the problem though: you cannot always make someone a contractor instead of an employee just to get around the legal liabilities. If you are contracting for a fixed amount of work or a temporary position (and certain other positions in certain industries), you are fine. However, if you are trying to make a permanent position which is vital to the company a contract position, you are opening yourself up to lawsuits and sanctions.
I'd advise against. Move to Kansas and get super cheap rent and google fiber.The area right near google is on FIRE right now with startups and entrepreneurs. Rent a house and rent rooms in the house to as many startups as possible. Install a vending machine with beer, soda and food. Try to innovate something unique, probably flash in the pan in nature. Sell it before the flash comes. If someone has already created this, buy it off of them. Gates did this with DOS. That said, I buy the assets of failed startups all the time and it's a huge waste of time unless you yourself have talent and can program well YOURSELF. If you can do this, you might as well do it where you are, or solicit people in college who have spare time. You'll need to find people who can invest 5 years of their life with zero or almost no pay. Very few people have the financial freedom to do this except college kids and this is where microsoft, apple, facebook and myspace all started. Anyone over 30 will need a stable life and salary and are bad employees. Never hire anyone with kids as they need regular money.
I actually founded one that's going to come back. I own and run ZXAC (ZX Amateur Cables). I specialized in making aftermarket audio cables and hookups for headphones, surround sound systems, and other devices. The reason my site went away is because of all the hackers that killed my last site. No personal information was recovered by the hackers but the damage was done... I'm not gone, I still work on the sidelines, but am not talked about much anymore. I ran the store from my hosur and shipped out products internationally. All the wire was custom made for me and my other business partner. I also have my own branded parts with the logo silkscreened on them. All cables were built in house, extensively tested, and then shipped out to the customer. I have to pay taxes on this for sure, and you have to get registered to be taxed accordingly. I'd consider myself an entrepreneur.
Hackers!? WTF. Were they just after credit card details or do you think it was competition? Sorry to hear that man.
smart guy. i like the posts. seriously considering business myself. e-commerce though, one man band kind of thing. like ebay but without ebay fees. still need to consider everything you've said and more though,
My host was supposed to take care of everything, but I've since switched to a different host. The new host is far more secure and cheaper to buy a three year contract from. They also support SSL, and I am going to be buying a SSL certificate shortly. No info was stolen by the hackers and they only wanted to farm credit card numbers. It's too bad they destroyed my entire SQL database in the process. On top of that my host did not offer SQL back-ups... The new host offers all of this, three layer protection, SSL2.0, and IP filtering. I currently have it setup where only my IP can log in and do stuff. I am thinking of having to hire someone to help maintain security. I am only a 1 man crew through. Maybe it's time to expand. While I don't know the exact reason behind the attacks nor does my old host even know how they intruded into the system. It sucks as I paid for their advanced security, which was $100 extra a year, and that failed.
I'm not really knowledgeable on this stuff, but what about PayPal store? I've ordered from some pretty cheap and dodgy sites before and they use the PayPal store to handle all financial transactions, instead of keeping people's personal information stored on a server. I imagine there's cons to the pros.
I just recently got criticized for not having done this already, by a friend's dad. Basically, get a group of people you know that covers everything you need for the business. Or, hire friends where available What is the business based on, if I may ask? Also, this "group" you're making- is that at UBC? Sounds interesting... For my case, it would be a game company- I have a small group of friends, some international that covers the spectrum for gaming developement- a couple people in business, a few of us (including I) that do the game dev itself, a couple coding people and quite a few artwork directors. However the idea of starting a business before getting any university training down is just too much for me. Inevitably we will form one in the future but only after we get some degrees done.
