The last couple days I spent most of my time looking for a nice design for my website and speaking with a software vendor about demoing some software I will need to run my business.

1. Website

My domains DNS information changed over so I was finally able to start uploading the CMS (Content Management System) to my site. Before I even started my site I had already decided what CMS I was going to choose and this choice came from past experiences with using three different CMS.

I have used Joomla!, WordPress, and Drupal for various website I have made for other people and myself. The two that I was swaying back and forth between was Joomla! and WordPress. Drupal I honestly didn’t like so I didn’t even consider it. I’ve used Joomla to create our old business website and also a friends business website. I have used WordPress for this blog and another friends website. Both are good systems to use but I personally prefer to use WordPress.

Joomla!

I like Joomla! because it gives you a lot of customization and allows you to create very professional looking websites. That being said I find Joomla! to be very rugged and not  user-friendly which is contrary to what a lot of other people say about it. Joomla! is very technical and I find you need to know more then just basic HTML and CSS to make changes. Also the layout and menu system I have found to be confusing and not very intuitive for someone not very tech savy.

Why do I say this? It’s not that I had a hard time using Joomla!, but when I completed my friends website and was showing her how to use Joomla! it became obvious that it’s not easy for a non technical person to pick up. She got the basics such as creating articles, but even adding images to an article was of trouble for her. The stock layout just doesn’t make things easy for the technically challenged. I had to add in a few plug-ins to make things easier for her. Even after those plug-ins, I still get an email every few days asking for help because something isn’t working right or she can’t figure out how to change, add, modify something on the site.

On top of that I also found Joomla! took up too much of my time creating a website. I spent more time fighting the system then actually designing the website. Weird things like sidebar widths weren’t matching my input, couldn’t center images on pages, images weren’t uploading properly, the list goes on. When designing our business website, we would sit around scratching our heads for an hour trying to figure out how to make some changes because anything we tried that we thought made logical sense just wasn’t working. With my friends site that I created I would have moments of sheer anger because Jommla! was just not doing what I told it to do.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend Joomla! if it’s your first website. If you are willing to put time in to learn how to use it and have some moment a pure confusion, it can be great and allow for some beautifully designed websites.

WordPress

As I said earlier WordPress is my preference for building a website on top of. I like WordPress for many different reasons. The layout, the plugins and the ease of use.

I personally find the layout of WordPress a lot easier to navigate than Joomla!. I find that it is more intuitive and logical. The way everything is laid out and labeled just makes sense. I honestly cannot explain my reasoning why, but I just find it easier.

In WordPress I find the plugin system very simple to use and a lot more free and useful plugins. Since you can search right in the WordPress system for a plugin you want and install it right away there is no need to download the file to your computer and upload it to the site. This works well for me because I ted to use my iPad to do a lot of editing and I can’t download files to the iPad (at least not out of the box.)

Using WordPress day-to-day I am just not as frustrated with it as I was when I was trying to use Joomla!. Again this goes back to things just making sense. The overall flow of WordPress makes using it enjoyable.

Website Design

Now that I selected WordPress as my CMS I was on the hunt for a nice theme to use with it. There is no way I am going to spend time designing my own theme that would just take up all of my 30 days and then more, so I looked through tons of different websites looking for the right theme. I started with some free themes and even tho there were good ones out there none of them I was really excited about. So I decided to start looking through some premium themes.

I came across a website that had some promising themes. Looked through the top rated ones, most viewed and most downloaded still didn’t find the right theme for me. Finally after just going page after page after page… after page! I found one that I liked.. Blah!

It looks great and fits the image I was thinking of for my site. The template has some cool built-in features that will help complement my posted information about my product and services. And overall it’s one that I didn’t look at and think “Who the fuck would use this?”

I uploaded and installed the theme and am currently planning out how my site is going to look page by page.

1. Registering Business Name

First thing I did today was register my business name with Service Ontario as I am located in Ontario, Canada. Registering was easy. I did it online on Service Ontario website. Took 10 minutes and only cost $60. They email you a PDF version of your business license right away so no need to wait for it to come in the mail (Although you can get it mailed if you like. takes about 10 business days to come in.) Getting my name registered and getting that master business license makes this journey feel more real than ever before. I am now registered as a sole proprietorship business owner! Boo-Ya!

I chose to start as a sole proprietorship for a couple of different reasons. The main one being cost. I am trying to start this business on a budget without draining my savings account. To incorporate would cost about $1000 in registration and legal fees vs the $60 to register as a sole proprietorship. Another reason I chose not to incorporate at this time is the sheer time it takes to complete all the paper work. Even if I hire a lawyer (which is expensive) to do it, it’ll still take a few days to get everything completed. I just don’t have the time right now to get that done. And to be honest don’t want to deal with creating by-laws, and shares and bla bla bla bla… I do plan on incorporating my business in the future once I get some income coming in and things start to get more serious.

Along with getting my business name registered i signed up for a tax number. Boring stuff, but I figured I’d get it out-of-the-way now.

2. Domain Registration and Web Hosting

I already registered my domain name a few months ago, but never got a hosting package for it. I currently have a hosting package with SiteGrounds for this blog, so I upgraded my service to Hosting Plus, which allow for multiple domain on the same account.

I chose SiteGrounds because we used them as our hosting company with my previous business and had no issues with them. They have great customer service and tech support, resolving issues within 24 hours.

When I originally registered my domain I had to settle with a .ca domain instead of the preferable .com. The .com domain was registered by a domain buying company and thankfully they had it listed to sell. I tried to get in contact with them and never heard back about my bid. Needless to say I didn’t follow-up on it. I did check again and it’s still listed to sell. I sent another email offer $200 for the domain name and will follow-up with them if I don’t hear back this time.

I had my domain transferred to my blog account and pointed the domain to the new server. Should take 24-48 hours to update the DNS information and then I will be able to start work on the site.

Didn’t do too much today overall but got some good foundation work done. Total time spent on the business today was about 1.5 hours. Registering the business name took the least amount of time, only about 20 minutes. Transferring my domain and upgrading my hosting package took a little over an hour. It probably would have taken less time, but my account wouldn’t switch over to the Hosted Plus and had to call their tech support.

All in all good start, hope to get more done tomorrow!

Total amount of time spent on the business, maybe an hour.

So the other day, still procrastinating on those aforementioned tasks of mine, I began reading through a fellow entrepreneur’s blog (www.startbreakingfree.com) and I stumbled upon something very interesting. He had set up a challenge for himself; start a business from nothing more than an idea and acquire one customer in 30 days. Although he did not complete this challenge himself, I still found this a rather inspiring notion and decided to take this challenge myself. I figured that this would be a good way to get me off my lazy ass and give my business a good kick start.

Now, I know that this won’t be an easy endeavor by any means. I will be tackling many important tasks this month, crucial to the foundation of this business.  I’ll be registering my business, creating a website, working on some marketing and sales, making contacts. The list goes on.
All this while still working a regular job.

Nevertheless, here I go! Starting my business and getting one customer within 30 days.

For the next 30 days I will post what I did that day to contribute to the starting of my business and getting that important first customer.

Challenge commences tomorrow, September 7th 2011 and will be completed October 7th 2011.

Ready. Set. GO!

Developing a business idea involves no special formula. I honestly believe that any idea can be successful with the right marketing and the right attitude. I’m sure that 35 years ago plenty of people were telling Steve Jobs that his computer business was a dumb idea. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’re well aware of Apple’s stronghold over the technology industry.

There are going to be a lot of people out there who are going to put your idea down and tell you that you’re not going to make any money with it. Listen to them, nod politely and carry on with your plan. Work hard at your business and who knows?  In 5 years time you may see that person again and you’ll get to tell them about how that dumb idea you had is now making you millions of dollars.

Now if your still thinking that person might be right and your idea is actually stupid, let me give you some examples of some crazy, stupid, whatever you want to call them, business ideas that have become successful.

One of the craziest ideas ever is The Million Dollar Homepage.  Alex Tew started the page to raise money for his college tuition in 2005 and by 2006 sold all 1 million pixels.

Another weird idea, that I personally would have shook my head at are Road Kill Toys. Yup that’s right! You can buy a toy that looks like some unfortunate, run down rodent.

And finally an idea that just goes to show you that you can really make money from just about anything with the right marketing. Pet Rock… The original pet rock started in the 70′s but a new company bought the rights and are selling a new version today.

Those are just three ideas that really demonstrate how you can make a significant amount of money really doing anything. So the next time some naysayer tells you that your business idea is stupid, just smile, nod and carry on your way… and with any luck, you’ll be carrying on your way all the way to the bank!

With my last business we never wrote a formal plan. We had written some ideas on papers and some vague strategies of how we would go about things, but nothing was written in the formal style of a business plan. Maybe this is why we didn’t hit the big times and become the world dominating corporation we wanted, but we will never know. With my last business I personally did want to sit down with my business partners and write at least a informal plan. One that covered some basics, marketing, sales, financials. With my new business I did write a plan and as much as I hated writing it, I feel more prepared to follow through with my idea.

Writing a business plan forces you to think about areas of your business that you might have not thought about. Or even just how you are actually going to something, such as marketing. By taking the time to write a plan, you start to see areas in your thought process that just don’t make any sense. This part can be hard, especially if you have never thought about it before.

While writing my business plan I had a hard time figuring out my financial. What I predicted I was going to sell, my estimated costs, month to month predictions. It was all just so confusing for me I just wanted to make money. I can honestly say that it took me a few weeks just to get past this part. What got me through it was reading a book and a few articles online about writing a business plans. My favorite resource was www.bplans.com. I also read ‘How to Write Business Plan for Dummies.’ Which I honestly thought was a waste of time and a very crappy book. The best resources I found were just from Google Search Results.

In the end writing a business plan was a good first step into starting my business. It gave me some new insite about my market and how successful I can be with my idea. I learned a lot about what it will take to run my business and some challenges that I will need to overcome in the future. With my plan in hand I feel more confident with moving forward.

I entered high school, then college and then got a job. My dream of starting my own business started to fade. One night a couple of friends an I were at our favourite bar playing pool and talking about how we all wanted to be rich one day. We were discussing our crazy ideas of how we were going to get there. I mentioned that I’ve always wanted to start something of my own and make my own money. This sparked a 3-4 hour-long conversation about starting our own business and two days later we were meeting to start the foundation of our own business.

We came up with a name, got business cards made and put up a website. We got a couple of customers here and there and was making a few bucks. Nothing near what we were hoping to make. We continued to run the business, got a few more customers and made a bit more money.

A year and a half later we met up to discuss shutting the business down. We were having too many partner disputes and ultimately the business was going nowhere. Did we fail? I say no. In the year and a half we ran our business I personally learned more about myself and about the business world then if I took a course in college. I say it was a success. We set out to start something and we did.

After closing the business down I never lost track of wanting to start something for my own. I continued with my original idea that I had and started to write-up a business plan. I even came up with a business name and registered the domain. Time passed and I didn’t do much but talk about what I needed to do. More time past and I forgot about the business. It wasn’t until a week before writing this that I really started to get back into starting it up.

I dug out my business plan and read over it. I wasn’t going to change a thing, but this time actually put the plan into action. This is why I started this blog; to document my journey through starting my own business and hopefully it will also keep me motivated to do work.

My name is Michael, I am currently 23 years old and am employed in Canada’s telecommunications industry where I have reluctantly found myself doing the same mundane job for the past 2 years. Needless to say I have had enough. I’m starting my own business!

This is not the first time that I have started my own business. Back in late 2009 a couple of buddies and I decided drunkenly we were going to change the face of IT as we know it. We had this big plans to change the technology world and make it a better more friendlier place. Little did we know two years later we would be closing down shop. We end on a positive note and gained many new skills and experiences along with a head full of new information.

Today I am starting on my own. I’m going to start the business that I have wanted to that one drunken night in the bar. An It company that actually makes an impact on peoples lives.

So my journey begins..