Starting a Tech Online Business: A Step-By-Step Guide

With unemployment being what it is, there’s never been a better time to take charge of your career destiny and start a tech online business. With PayPal now a common method of payment, and with the capabilities of the average home computer, you could run a very successful online business right out of your home, with a very little overhead cost.

Of course, success does not just happen. It is the unprepared entrepreneur who leaps before looking, possibly finding him- or herself in a mess of loose ends, noncompliance fees, and a plan that is either disorganized or nonexistent.

Yes, there are success stories of shoot-first-ask-questions-later-type people who flew by the seat of their pants and made it work. And you can too. Ellen L. Swenson from the service where everyone can ask to write my essay cheap says that every business venture has a very real chance at failure—doesn’t it make sense to educate yourself as much as possible before taking the plunge and risking you and your family’s financial future?

Business Plan

Before you order your business cards, before you sign the paperwork, before you so much as sharpen your pencil . . . stop and develop a business plan.

Your business plan is your business’s roadmap. Your treasure map. Without one, you don’t know where your business is going. You don’t even really know where it’s been. But I bet I can tell you where it’s going to end up.

The business plan is the skeletal structure of your business. It lives. It breathes. And it changes—your business plan should grow along with your business, and you should go over it constantly, probing it for weaknesses and asking yourself if your goals have changed, or if they should change.

Your business plan will include information on:

Executive Summary—This is your business plan’s abstract, a summary of the rest of it. Write this last.

Business Description—Talk about the structure (LLC? S corporation? sole proprietorship?), your mission statement, your business’s strong points, and weak points, and so on.

Industry Analysis—Understand your industry by studying, reading, and staying informed. Think about and discuss how your tech business fits into or influences that industry.

Products and Services—Yeah, pretty self-explanatory.

Marketing Information—Who is your target market? Where will you find them? How will they find you? Are they female? Male? Are they working? Do some research, identify any trends or growth, and figure out how to sell your business to these people.

Strategic Plan—And you thought I was kidding about the electric company thing. Here, talk about the day-to-day details: your building, your utilities, your vendors.

Management—Names, addresses, titles, and so on.

Financial Plan—As with any good road map, the journey ends with your destination. Talk about how you’re getting from here to there: how you’ll find investors, whether you take out a bank loan, your projected earnings, and losses, and where you see your business in a few years.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: business plans play a huge, massive, monumentally large role in getting a potential partner, investor, lender, and everyone else to take your company seriously.

Business Website

Your tech business website is the center of your online presence (obviously), and as such, it needs to be comprehensive—the sum of everything your customers could want to know about your business.

Products and Services

Your website should list all of the offerings of your tech online business in a structured, logical way. And, if you have a large number of items, categorize and sub-categorize so you aren’t overloading your visitors with information.

About Us

With the anonymity of the Internet, your customers must be able to find out a little bit about your company—and find how to contact you. If you don’t provide this information, potential customers might think you’re trying to hide something.

Terms and Conditions

Your terms and conditions are there to protect both you and your customers. Your terms and conditions should be the length they need to be to clearly explain what the customer receives for his or her payment, what your business will do for that transaction, and the procedures to be followed in any circumstance—no more, and no less.

Register Your Business

You’ll need to register your business to set up a business bank account, among other things. And despite some of the advice and guidance out there, there’s no single best type of business to form. To determine the best business type for you, you’ll need to figure out your priorities.

Sole Proprietorship

The simplest type of business to form is a sole proprietorship DBA, which is simply you, personally, doing business under a different name. This is going to give you the lowest startup cost of any of your options—but you’ll be personally liable for any debts or obligations of the business. If a customer sues the business, they’re suing you; there’s no legal separation between you and the business.

Partnership

An unincorporated partnership is similar to a sole proprietorship, but (obviously) with two or more people involved in the tech business. The pros of a partnership: more people to share the responsibility of running the business. The cons: more people to share the responsibility (and decision-making) of running the business.

Incorporated Entities

The incorporated entities include Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), S Corporations, and C Corporations. They all provide limited liability protection through something called the Corporate Veil, which acts as a legal separation between the business and the owner(s). The business is considered a separate legal entity from the individuals, which means that in normal circumstances an individual’s finances cannot be seized in a situation where the business defaults or is issued. Take a look at this comparison chart to get an idea of the tax, structural, and other differences between the incorporated entities. No matter which one of these entities you choose, there are plenty of services that can form the entity for you. Incorporation Guru has a quick rundown of the different options (like Zenbusiness and Legalzoom) that can setup your LLC or Corporation for a small fee.

About the author

Erica R. Gibson is a tech writer at the service where everyone can ask to write my essay. She is fond of learning something new. In this case, likes reading self-development blogs to improve her professional and personal knowledge.