 Welcome to the journey. Today we're going to talk about how to start a business. So we want to start a business. Hooray! So first things first, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess. I know what you're going to say. Get organized. Yes, but before we jump in, I want to say huge congratulations to you at home. You're wanting to start a business that's why you're watching this video. It's a scary first step, but we've got your back. Now with starting that business, you want to get organized and first things first, figure out what your business name is. We have a super cool video. We'll have the link right up here for you. You can check it out where we go into how to figure out what your name should be and some tips on picking the right name. It's a good one. Yeah. So what was your name that we from that brainstorming session, would you come up with? Coffee and kickflips. I love it. Dig it. So now once you have that name, you really want to figure out and create your business plan. This is just a simple document that's going to go over what your business is, what you do, who your market is, who your customers are, everything that you need to potentially show to investors to give you money. Right? You want to get that bread? Yeah. You got to have a clear action plan with all the details. Plus it'll help you to really flush out what you need and the goals you should keep top of mind in order to succeed and commit to those. Right? And it keeps you kind of grounded so you're not going into a million different places as we all do. I know I do it a lot. Right? If I don't have that plan written out, I am everywhere and nowhere. Same. After you get organized and you've committed to what you want to do with your business, what comes next? I've seen my entrepreneurial friends and I went through it myself with coffee and kickflips is determining do I do an LLC, do I not? Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. So you definitely have to register your business in some shape or fashion. Right? What most people do is the LLC, but there's also sole proprietorship, there's partnership, there's corporation. But again, the most common one is LLC. Why is that? Well, it helps you really protect yourself from your business. So if your business was ever sued, they can't come after your personal stash of pizza. Right? It's going to keep that separated. Hands off. All right. And then once you have that, you can go ahead and get your federal tax identification number or known as the employee identification number EIN. That's really going to help you when it comes time to creating a business bank account. All right. So next up, you need to get your business license, which you can contact your Secretary of State to get more info about that. But this does vary by state and also depending on what type of your business you have, this will mix it up as well. So check out the description below to get more info. All right. So now the next thing you need to do with starting your business is figuring out where you want to work. Now with your coffee and cake flips, I know that you can't really do that at home. You have a brick and mortar store, but maybe you're, you can do it at home or you can do a co-working space, which is super popular. If you don't know what a co-working space is, is you essentially rent out part of a building or you rent out a desk and there's tons of other entrepreneurs just like you doing the same thing. So it's cool to get that, that same like little brain trust and people just like you working and you're out of the house. I know I love working from home, but I need to kind of mix it up every now and then. So it's that or coffee shops. Yeah. Same. I get it. And also what's cool about the co-working space, think about it. You're in such an exciting time. You're starting a business. You might meet someone that could help you network or help you with that next step because there's a lot of like Neely said, like-minded people hanging out there doing productive things like you. Absolutely. And I have a really good buddy that works at a co-working space called Galvanize in downtown Phoenix. And they have a shared Slack channel of all the entrepreneurs in that, that, that co-working space, right? And there's nothing but leads all day. So he gets most of his work. Didn't have to go to the co-working space most of the time. It's just in that Slack channel and he's getting business. All right. So one thing I thought about with coffee and kickflips. You mentioned I have a brick and mortar location. Yes. But I had to think about, okay, well, do I want to rent a space? Do I want to buy property? How does that look? I need money. So how do you go about that? We got to talk about the hard stuff. Yeah. Money is important, right? Yeah. So first things first, get a business bank account. Don't use your personal account, especially when you're paying your employees and everything else. It's going to get real just jumbled up between all of your pizza expenses and your business expenses, right? And then with that, open up a line of credit just in case something happens. You have those quick funds and then possibly talks to a tax attorney or an accountant to help you really keep everything organized. That's been very helpful for my other local heroes out there, my friends. Recommend that. All right. Another big topic, insurance. This was a huge topic of discussion and coffee and kickflips because, well, there's ramps in the back. So you got kiddos on their skateboards. Little Billy. Trying to turn into a Tony Hawk overnight and let me tell you, you need to cover your business with insurance and also your employees. A helmet isn't just going to keep you safe. Right. Your insurance shouldn't just be a helmet. Everyone coming into your shop. Here's a helmet. You're good. You're good. Good luck on the half pipe. Yeah. So yeah, check out just different insurances and do your research to make sure you're fully covered because you never know what might happen. Someone might hurt themselves at your location or just who knows. All right, Naly. Now I want to talk about branding your business. So it's fun stuff. It's a fun stuff. Your email address, your logo. I know we have a video on that. There's also social media, all the marketing. What are you going to do with your website? Let's jump in, right? So branding, we were talking about all the not so fun stuff, but those are pretty important essential things. Branding is also super important and essential. We have a video on the basics of branding, but let's kind of jump into a couple of the different sections to give you just an overview of what these look like. So let's start with a domain name and your email address, right? So your domain name, that's going to get people to your website. You don't want to have some random URL, right? You want it to be your business. So Coffee and Kickflips. Coffee and Kickflips. Coffee and Kickflips.com, right? That's the address. That's the URL people are going to type to get to your website. And with that, you'll have that professional email. So you can have Emma at coffeeandkickflips.com versus coffeeandkickflips at gmail.com. So you have a de-ending not be your domain name. It doesn't look as professional. Like I love Gmail, but as a business, have it your domain name. You can still do Gmail for business. There's Office 365. Lots of email providers that you can use to really make your business look professional and credible. And then jumping into your website, right? That's the whole point of having an online presence. It's something that you control is have some type of website, even if it's just basic information on what you do or some videos of your kickflips and coffee in the back, right? Yeah. Put the merch on there. Maybe an option for people to spend money on your website. Get those helmets because that's your insurance, right? And then social media. Tell us about social media and the basics of it with branding their business. Yeah. So that's where you want to go and really take the logo that you have, be consistent with it across all of your platforms. So Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and then from there, definitely identify the voice of your brand and be consistent with that as you're creating content day in and day out, because you want to be consistent and make sure those are business pages, not personal pages. Very important. Can you elaborate a little bit on what the voice means, right? People throw it around a lot. Yeah. It's hard to understand. What does that mean with having a consistent voice? Okay. Very good topic. One thing that comes to mind right away from being in the coffee business for years before I decided, hey, I want to have coffee and kickflips. I worked for a variety of coffee businesses and they did have their own voice. There was one coffee spot that was just very, it was upscale and very fancy. I spent a lot of money there as a customer before I worked there. So their voice was a little bit more, I don't know, just very classy and true to the art of coffee. Whereas when I worked at a spot that really inspired me to open my own, it was a little more divey. It was in Long Beach, California. We would say things like, rad, dope, sick. This coffee is awesome. As we were doing captioning and creating our social media content, it was just a little bit more loose and chill, different vibe, different voice. So whatever your voice is, identify that before going and creating content across your social media pages. And finally, policies. What are your policies? I know I saw this a lot when I'm speaking to retail businesses and when I would consult them, it's like, okay, so what are your policies? What are your return policies? I know I personally love when I shop when the return policy is a little lenient because I lose receipts all the time. But the tag's on it. I swear. So what are your policies in place for your business? All right, now with almost any type of business, you need a terms of service. Now, you should probably consult some legal counsel with this. If you're not a lawyer, you shouldn't just make up stuff. You should have something, right? Like what is your return policy? Like you said, what's your privacy policy? Do you keep customer information? What does all this look like? Have some type of terms of service to help protect you and your business. And it's absolutely important. And then have a copy of that, right? For all of your employees and have that there readily available for them to review. Yeah, most companies will usually have it on their website, usually down at the bottom, there's a little link to the terms of service and the privacy policy. Speaking of your website, another important thing to bring up, make sure you have contact info. Be accessible. Yes. And also have some social proof that is definitely today's word of mouth. So be easily accessible, easy for me to contact you and definitely make sure I can find you readily, easily available on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. All the things. And that social proof, that's basically just testimonials or reviews of other customers that they say, hey, Emma's pizza is awesome or Emma's coffee shop is awesome. A word of that looks like it really helps people identify with you and trust you and a pro tip for you all. Do not be just a cave dweller. Go out into the open and be social. Talk to people on social media. Talk to people in real life and really put your business and yourself out there. So you can't expect them all just to come to you because that will not happen. I know that's a famous quote. If you build it, they will come. They won't. You have to go to them and show them what you're all about. Be proactive and add the human element to your online presence. All right. That's a wrap. Do you like this video? Make sure to give this a like at the bottom. And while you're there, leave a comment on what you've learned today. And be sure to subscribe and ring that bell so you're the first to know when we come out with another video. This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.