Doing a startup.

I’m starting a new venture and I’m going to let you watch me as I do it.  You’ll see my mistakes, as well as my successes.  We’ll go through the thought process right here on smallbusinessboomers.com.  I strongly hope you will comment and question what I do.  Your feedback will help you understand the points that have been preached here and on other sites.  Hopefully they will help me be a success as well.  Fasten your seatbelts.  Here we go.

First Principles

A startup is always risky.  I need to control or at least reduce my exposure to any risk.  How do I do that?

One of the primary ways I can keep risk down is by incorporating.  A corporation is a legal entity, “person” that limits the downside liability of the owners of the corporation to only the loss of the assets they have invested in the company.  It provides a level of protection to business claims against my personal assets.

I’m not talking about a “traded on the stock market” corporation I’m talking about a C or S type corporation. It is not difficult or expensive to do.  There are tax ramifications that I need to consider.

How else can I limit my risk?  Well, whatever I do I should try to do it on the cheap.  Money is just a means of quantifying risk.  I need to keep that in mind.

I should do something I have a passion for.  Definitely.  When the going gets hard I need to remember the enthusiasm I had in the beginning.

Ultimately, I need a plan: objectives, strategies and action items.  Nothing lengthy.  I think a single sheet will do nicely.  I’ll post it next time.  

Until then let me know if there is any particular topic you want to hear about in this process.