Permits, & Laws, & Taxes! Oh my!

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Hate IRS

This week, we had to research Legal Structures and Licenses and Taxes.

The legal structures are:

I went with a “Sole Proprietorship” . Simply because it would not require me to file any extra applications, and would be less complicated (still complicated – just less complicated) than an S Corp or LLC.

I actually filed for an EIN  (Employer ID Number) online. But as a sole proprietor, with no employees, I’m not sure I needed one.

Being in Idaho, I registered my Business with the Secretary of State, which included a $25 fee.

And I applied for permits online.

Got my EIN and seller’s permit, now I’m just waiting to hear back from the secretary of state.

Also, we’re supposed to be making headway on our websites. I, unfortunately, have made very little. All I’ve discovered is ways that I don’t want to do it, or ways that I can’t do it. Now I’m debating over whether I would be able to build the site with Dreamweaver.

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Lesson 4 Weekly Reflection

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This week covered Web Site design principles and credit card payments.

Designing a Website Knowledgebase
8 Tips for Designing a Great Website
Basic e-commerce web site design and development
Color Scheme Designer

…and…

PayPal Payments Standard
Checkout by Amazon
Mercantec

We practiced making a Paypal “buy now” button to add to a site which was neat. I figured I could go with Paypal or Amazon for merchant services because they both have the same fees.

PAYPAL buy now

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Lesson Three Weekly Review

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For Lesson 3, we focused on choosing a site builder and a host. Although I started with the thought of building my site with WIX, I ultimately chose iPage because of their sweet deal for hosting.

I ultimately chose iPage because of their sweet deal for hosting.

We also completed our Project 1 – Choosing a Product Workbook. Doing that was quite interesting. It made us choose 20 business ideas, which was hard, and so it made me stretch to think of different ones.

One of the random ideas I put was French – English translation services that would be sold through my website. Doing the demand and competition comparison ranked that market at the top. I didn’t choose that model though because it would require me to put in too many hours actually doing translation – assuming that anyone hired me through the site.

Also, I decided on the domain name “mtgtokens.com”.

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Lesson Two Weekly Reflection

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This week we learned about:

–Finding a wholesale distributor
–How to quantify and compare / weighted decision making
–Affiliate marketing
–Drop shipping

We continued analyzing the scenario of the three friends and their journey on deciding on an online business.
In comparing Affiliate Marketing and Drop Shipping, I felt more partial to the Affiliate Marketing model. It would be more enjoyable for me to create a web site that had a blog, articles, videos, and maybe even forums, or a cool online application that would attract visitors, and simply be monetized by affiliate ads. Something like this, if it became successful, could later include an online marketplace, or subscription model. The challenge with the affiliate model seems to be that it would be a slow growing business. It would require dedication and time. I think the key would be to make the site about something you are passionate about. That way, it will easier to stay dedicated and devote time to it.

The drop shipping model is attractive in that you don’t need to deal with inventory or shipping. But the scary part is that you rely very heavily on the drop shipping company. There is the risk of credit card chargebacks (and I work at a bank, and see how often people back out of transactions by using chargebacks). The other thing is, that while you don’t need to deal with back-end inventory and shipping and so on, you do need to deal with the front-end transactions, sales, and customer service. While customer service can have gratifying moments, it is overall a drudging job.

As far as starting a business this semester, I’m not sure if I am any closer to knowing what to do, but we’ll see what happens.

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