I’m already in the process of trademarking my business name. I got my website & facebook up. My business is an internet business.
It started with my facebook like page (that I thought would go no where) & is not almost up to 150k likes. My page has been up since august of 2012. I basically post about fashion, make up, hair styles & alot of other really girly stuff (kind of like the page dresses & fashion & what girls like except I show where to get them). & when I hit about 40k likes I was getting contacted by business to post about their make up or clothes or interior design. I created my website, twitter, instagram & website. I also have business cards
I also get paid from google adsense ppc & affiliates on my webite. And I get paid for promoting other business through my facebook page
$75 for a post every 3 days in the month
$100 for a post every 2 days of the month
$125 for a post every day of the month
My paypal account is FLOODED with money but I haven’t spent it & don’t plan to until the beginning of the year because of taxes. I also work ALONE on this, up to 5 hours a day but next year I plan on hiring a 2 or 3 people to help me manage all of this since I’m in school full time and work as a nurse part time.
Since this is getting more out there to people I was wondering how I can make this an established legitimate business. I’m getting between 7000-10000 likes a week now. I plan on taking some business classes in the summer. I can’t take them now because I’m in school for nursing (MSN). This internet business is really just something I do on the side to turn a little extra cash. But I do wanna make it legit.
Categorized | Featured Articles
How Do You Establish A Business?
Posted on April 23, 2013.
Sounds like you’re on your way, but you already have some issues.
For instance, you say your PayPal is flooded with money, which is a good problem to have. However,
you don’t mention how you are reporting that income on your 2012 tax return and how are you accounting for it this year? If you are a sole proprietor, you can report your business income on Schedule C and itemize the business expenses as deductions (website fees, development costs, business cards, etc).
You also need to have “terms and conditions” for any “members” area, not to mention the boilerplate legal disclaimers and a registered copyright agent for DMCA.
Not clear what you mean by “trademarking my business name”, since you can only “trademark” a brand, so you’d first have to use your business name as a brand on your services. Are you registering it, which is completely optional in the USA? You can register in one or more states for short money (another deductible business expense), or in the USPTO for more money and more complicated, but you get national priority registration and can use ® on your brand when the registration is issued.
Did you program your web pages yourself or hire independent contractors? If independent, did you remember to get the copyrights, or at least an exclusive license in written agreements?
Have you thought about limiting your liability with an LLC or corporation? Insurance?
You should probably sit down with an accountant, at the very least, if not also an attorney and maybe talk to someone who is a business adviser.