✦Business · 12 recordsStart a small business

Registration, a bank account and an accountant are not the business, but they block it. This runs the setup alongside the first sales rather than in front of them, because a fully registered business with no customers is the more common failure.

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Goal

Take money from the first ten customers Month 4

Ten paying customers, not a registered company with no revenue.

Set it up properly Month 2

The blocking admin, done in parallel with selling rather than before it.

  • Decide the structure and register itDo firstWeek 2
  • Open a separate bank account for the businessDo firstWeek 3
  • Find out what I owe, and whenWeek 6

Find the first customers Month 4

Starts in week one, before the setup is finished.

  • Write down exactly what I sell and what it costsDo firstDay 3
  • Talk to ten people who might buy itWeek 4
  • Make the first saleMonth 3

Routines

  • Talk to one potential customerweekly
  • Update the numbersweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Setup is not the business

Registration, a bank account and an accountant do not make a business. They only stop being blockers. The far more common failure is a perfectly registered company with no customers.\n\nSo the two projects run at the same time, and the sales conversations are dated before the admin is finished on purpose.

✦ Questions

Start a small business, answered.

Far less than most checklists suggest: register in whatever form fits, separate the money from your own, and understand what you owe and when. The rest of the setup can safely happen while you are already selling something.
Only if somebody is lending you money on the strength of it. Otherwise the useful version is short — what you sell, to whom, at what price, and what it costs you — and it gets more accurate after the first few customers, not before.
From the first week, in parallel with the setup. This plan deliberately dates the first sales conversations before the administrative work is finished, because the setup expands to fill whatever time it is given.
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