Starting my business - tips?

[coughlinjon]

Anyone here run their own small studio? Meaning fewer than 3 employees. I am about to enter into a long term agreement with another small company that includes some rev share and I think it's time for me to form a company instead of being a solo dev as contractor. My concern is the irregularity with which I'll be receiving income - if my rev payment is really frontloaded, I would like to schedule out personal payments to myself on a more regular schedule. Also, I'd like to have money in a business in case I want to work any small projects myself while paying collaborators.

 

Thoughts? I am COMPLETELY new to all of this and might have some bad assumptions with the overhead associated with starting the business.

[Travis]

My wife and I opened a studio... a craft studio! We got a lot of help from a local government group called the "Small Business Development Center." That is local to us, though, but maybe you have something near you that is similar. They really helped guide us through the process we needed and either answered questions or knew who to ask. 

Edited September 6, 2017 by Travis
Wrote "Development Development" ... you know this was good advice with a mistake like that!

[WARP DOGS]

I haven't started my own company quite yet, but I've done research. One thing that kept surprising me is how much your local government is involved. I expected federal and state forms, but even my small town of less than 20,000 people required a lot of paperwork and fees because I'd be working out of my house

 

Are you the only employee of your particular business? If so, you may want to consider a sole proprietorship to make things easy on you

[coughlinjon]

I hadn't realized there might be so much involved with the local government. I would be the only employee and I would work out of my house, yes. I need to contact someone in our city about all of this, I guess.