It's been a month since I filed papers with the Travis County Clerk's Office to create two businesses — Observant Records and Eponymous 4. Of course, Eponymous 4 isn't really a "business", but if I want to sell merchandise or get paid royalties under an alias, it's probably best to be somewhat official.
In this past month, I've reacquainted myself with accounting concepts, got familiar with creating formulas in Excel, shopped for office supplies and visited the post office many, many times.
A long time ago, I took some kind of online personality test to see if I had the fortitude for entrepreneurship. The test results told me to keep my day job. I can't say I'm getting into this whole record label thing with the aim of quitting said day job, but at the same time, I don't think I'm total inept at being my own boss.
The test — I wish I could find it again — did attempt to gauge my opinion on a number of situations. How did I feel about putting money in a business without a return on investment? How comfortable was I with being financially insecure while getting the business off the ground? Speaking on generic terms, I'm honestly not comfortable with those situations. But with music, hell — I'd be surprised if I got paid for anything. So that kind of fear can be nicely mitigated by nihilism.
Besides, it's not about the money — it's about the music. Right?
Here's what I've learned so far in trying get a business off the ground:
- Filing a DBA ("doing business as") is ridiculously easy and cheap.
It came out to $16.20 for each company registered at the Travis County Clerk's Office. The hardest
part was carving out the time in the day to do it. Just show up, use
the clerk's office database to make sure the name you want isn't
already taken, fill out the form, wait for your number to be called and
pay your $16.20 in cash. Nope, no checks or credit cards. I filed both
Observant Records and Eponymous 4 in less than half an hour.
- Take an accounting class. In fact, take it even if you're not considering starting a business. It takes the mystery out of all those mysterious financial reports, let alone your bank statement. And if you're going to sell stuff, you will need to collect sales tax. It's better to do that with your books in order.
- Yes, even if you sell a t-shirt at a show, you'll need to tack on the sales tax at the time of the sale, or take the sales tax out afterward. Getting an sales tax license in Texas is not difficult and costs nothing. You can even do it online.
- If you don't take an accounting class, you might get away with being able to use Quickbooks, so long as your remember it's not Quicken. But it's better to take the class, so you can understand why Quickbooks won't let you delete anything. No, really.
- Download and install PDFCreator. It comes in incredibly handy if you're dealing with government forms in fillable PDF format or when you're prompted to print something out. With PDFCreator, you can print to file and have a backup of any form, label or printout you create. Not all fillable PDF forms allow you to save a copy.
- Using the Post Office's Click-N-Ship for Priority or Express Mail is cheaper than doing it in person or using the kiosk. The cheapest online rate for Priority Mail is $4.75 with free Delivery Confirmation. In person, it's $4.80 with Delivery Confirmation an extra $0.65. Mailing stuff is going to become a regular part of life, so it's best to get very familiar with the Post Office web site.
- Get lots of mailing labels in various sizes. If you plan on selling stuff through your website, stack up on envelopes.
- If you ever wanted to get in touch with people you haven't spoken to in a long time, asking them to buy your stuff is a good excuse.
I'm certain I'm going to learn a lot of new things later, especially when I discover I'm doing things now that are totally wrong.