How to LEGALLY Start a Business in 2023 (Part 1)

today we're going to talk to you about how to start your business legally in 2023 hey gang welcome back to the channel my name is Jim if you're new here I am a lawyer turned YouTube entrepreneur well actually I'm still a lawyer I do trademarks that's a whole other story that's not what you care about you're here to learn about how to start a business legally in 2023. I'm doing this video today because it's been a hot minute since I've talked about the things that you need to do to set up your business legally and things have changed somewhat in the past several years since I last did a video like this so as I'm recording this video it is right now the middle of January 2023 and we just passed the new year and some of you might be thinking gosh I really would like to start that business that I've been thinking about starting for one two three however many years you've been thinking about starting a business you've got something in the back of your mind that you want to do and you're like man I just need to get to it so today's video I'm going to share with you kind of how you do that and make sure you do it in a legal sort of way legalish sort of way and the reason I think this is important is because I've talked to a lot of potential clients and clients over the years and one of the things that that constantly gets them in the way of themselves trying to start a business is they're worried that they're not going to set it up the right way they're worried they're going to do something wrong they're going to do something illegal they're going to get sued and they want to make sure that that doesn't happen to them I mean when you're just getting started in business the likelihood of something bad happening really the worst thing that could happen is you don't do anything at all and then your business never gets off the ground but once you've been in business for a little bit of time it's really important that you have that proper Legal Foundation in place from the very beginning and so you want to make sure you know you're doing things like having the proper Legal Foundation in terms of a a business entity you want to make sure that you pick the right name that nobody else is is using your name or that you're not using some somebody else's name I should say you want to make sure that you've got the proper Insurance in place and so we're going to be talking about all those issues and much more in today's video because this is the type of stuff that you really need to know if you're just getting started in business and and hopefully the way I talk about it and the way I am teaching this to you really resonates with you and you know you take action to actually get started doing your business because that's the whole goal that's why you're watching this video so real quick if you're wondering who I am I am actually a trademark lawyer I'm an online business lawyer I've worked with a lot of online entrepreneurs to help them start their business the right way and so I kind of have a pretty unique skill set in what online business is all about and what business in general is all about I've started two businesses of my own well actually more than that but two two businesses that are still running and successful I should say so I kind of understand what this is all about in terms of starting a business and so which leads me to the first thing that you need to do when you're just getting started and that's you need to at least establish some sort of plan now I'm not suggesting and I see so many people students in my OB foundations group you know clients I've talked to potential clients I've talked to they get in their own way because they try so hard to plan out their business they're worried that they're going to make a mistake that they're going to pick the wrong Market that they're gonna that nobody's gonna buy what they have to sell and so they just don't do anything so it's really important that you start by doing a little bit of planning and what do I mean by that I don't mean you need to spend a year or two or three creating a big long business plan that you're going to be presenting to Angel Investors that's not what I'm talking about unless you actually do plan on presenting the angel investors in which case you probably should not be watching this video you probably should be talking to some sort of professional that deals with that some of the things that you need to be thinking about are what number one what are you going to sell what's your business going to be about what's the market that you're going to get into who are you going to sell your price products or Services too what is that audience avatar look like so I'm in a coaching group right now and my coach just asked us for the month of January to really develop a one-page document that really talks about who my client is and who I want to help with my Law Firm business and so that's that's what you really need to do you need to get in the mind of your potential customers and think about who it is that would buy your product and why do they want your product versus buying somebody else's product and then along those lines how are you going to find those people how are you going to connect with and develop relationships with those potential clients or customers so that they're going to know you like you and trust you enough to actually give you money that's the second thing you need to be really concerned about and then finally the last thing I would say in terms of the planning stage is are there competitors in your field and what do I mean by that I mean if you're the only person in your your field is trying to sell this thing unless you came up with a brand new product that nobody else has ever been on the market with before that's that's not good you need to make sure that there are other people at least when you're just getting started in business make sure there's other people that are selling what you want to sell and then find a way to distinguish yourself because you want to make sure there's already a market for your goods or services if there's no market for your goods and services well then I mean it's gonna be really hard to develop a brand new market unless you have a really novel idea and I'd say 99.9 of businesses that are just getting started for the first time don't have that novel idea which leads us to step number two and that's you need to pick a brand name for what it is that you're going to be selling and now this doesn't have to be final this doesn't have to be perfect it doesn't have to be something that you know that you're leveraging a lot of money with but let's just think about this practically speaking if in the back of your mind you already have the name of your brand and you know and you've got like a really good name that you really thought hard about I can think of a client that I'm working with a trademark client that I'm working with right now that we did the call and he told me the name that they wanted to use and it was like immediately obvious to me that that was an awesome name for what it was that they're selling and so if you already have that name in mind then you definitely want to do some searching to see if it's available with the USPTO website you want to go and do some searches on Google to see if the name is available you want to see you know go to a website like namecheap.com that's where I buy all my domains from and see if you if there's a domain name available for that name you want to check all the social media channels to see if the name is available on social media and just see if anybody else is using that name and if not then you probably want to take some steps to start protecting that name even if you're not selling anything yet so that leaves us to step number three and that's to either file your trademark application or set up an LLC now I give this an either or because a lot of people like to set up their LLC before they file their trademark that way the LLC is actually owning the trademark which is the right way to do it however if you decide if money's tight and you're like I just need to pick one and you're thinking either LLC or trademark I typically would go with the trademark first and the reason being that it takes a long time for your trademark to go through the trademark process you want to make sure that nobody else is using that name you want to make sure that nobody jumps in and sees that you're doing something on social media or with a blog or or something like that after you start publishing what it is that you're going to be selling and and they don't jump in and try and steal your name and also you just want to sleep better knowing that nobody is actually using the name that you want to use and that nobody's going to send you a cease and desist letter in three or four years after your businesses you know happen and and tell you to shut everything down so you want to make sure that doesn't happen so if you're trying to decide between going with the trademark first or going with the LLC first really like I said if money's tight go with the trademark first but if you have enough money to invest in your business and you can afford to do both and I would recommend setting up the LLC first and then using that to actually own the trademark for your brand now when it comes to filing a trademark application this is a really complicated thing to do I would recommend that you talk with a you know a lawyer about that if you're thinking about filing your own trademarks I've also done videos here on the channel that talk more in depth about what it takes to file your own trademark application mistakes you can make in the process things of that sort so definitely make sure to check out those videos at a minimum or consult with me or another lawyer yeah if you think talking about getting your trademarks registered now in terms of the LLC you can absolutely do the LLC on your own I'll include a link down below to my preferred vendor for setting up your own LLC also my office does llc's for people as well typically as part of the trademark process you know that's something that you can very easily do on your own except for in a handful of states where it kind of gets a little bit tricky when you're setting up the LLC so as long as you're not in one of those States and you'll know if you're in one of those States because you'll start the process and you'll be like wait a minute this is getting a little bit out of hand and this is way more than I had bargained for here when I thought I was just going to be filing some paperwork with the state so you'll know and if that's the case just reach out to me or like I said we've got some service providers that I recommend down in the description below so once you have your LLC in hand it is time to go and get your EIN number there are lots of videos I'm sure online about how to do this it's very easy you go to the IRS website that's irs.gov it takes about five minutes you can apply make sure you have a business address I should have mentioned this this is probably a step actually I put should put before you either file for your trademark or before you file for your LLC and that is you need to establish a business address and I would typically recommend sorry something in my eye there on days like today like video days those are the days where I wear my contacts and I actually hate wearing my contacts they make my eyes really dry and itchy and I typically get stuff in them and it's not good anyway so I probably should have put this as a step that you use actually before you set up the LLC and that is that you want to make sure that you have a business address now the reason you're going to do this you could use your home address that's perfectly fine if you're renting space from some place for a for business purposes like a Regis or an office suites Plus or someplace like that also find to use that as your business address but if you are going to be working from home as a lot of you will are likely to be doing then you definitely want to make sure you snag a virtual address again I'll include a link down below to a service that I use and love for my virtual address while I'm living here in Portugal uh they're great they will scan in my mail they will email it to me and I if I need something they forward it to me and provided we can make it through the mail system here in Portugal I will get it it does take a little bit of time but I will get it in the mail and so that's a really great service and that's something I would encourage you to think about you also could use a post office box if you wanted to um problem with the post office box is you have to actually you know get out and get the mail like at least you know once or twice a week and I don't know personally I didn't like doing that one more errand to run that just bothered me so it was worth it to me to pay a little bit extra money to have my mail scanned and in the case of living in Portugal I really don't have an option I need to have it scanned and emailed to me actually they've got an app that notifies me whenever I've got new mail so that's kind of cool that was kind of a tangent uh let's get back to what we were talking about I think what we were talking about is let me check my notes oh yeah getting your EIN number so you'll need that address to get your EIN number I'll also to set up your LLC and for your trademark so you want to go back a few steps before and get that virtual address now I will something I'll say about the EIN number is even if you have decided that you want to be a sole proprietor in other words you you don't want to register as an LLC with your state or a corporation it's still a good idea to get an EIN number it's not required but it's a really good idea because it's going to segregate your income and your assets for the business from the income and assets of your your person and it'll help when you're setting up a business bank account to have that separate EIN number for the business and a separate tax ID number for your personal bank accounts and you don't want to commingle those things that's like a really bad thing to do you definitely don't want to do that so I would highly recommend you get that EIN number like I said it only takes a couple minutes if you go to a website where you try to apply for it and they ask you to pay for something then it probably wasn't the IRS website it probably was a service and it's free you definitely shouldn't have to pay for that now mind you if you use a service to set up your LLC they may charge you to obtain that as well and and I would say ninety percent of the time it goes through without a hitch when you're applying online there are some cases where you know things don't match up and they need you to mail in some paperwork or fax in some paperwork to the IRS but most the time it works pretty good the only other issue could be if you live out of the United States and you're trying to start a business in the United States and you don't have a tax ID number or a social security number then you're gonna actually have to jump through a couple extra Hoops to get that EIN number for your business and that's probably something you want to hire somebody to help you do there are Specialists out there that will help foreigners to get tax ID numbers so let's see all right before we move to the next thing my mouth's getting a little dry so I'm gonna go with my favorite Portuguese mug today for a little uh Portuguese coffee little Portuguese coffee oh and I should have showed you although we still have a little price tag on it anyway my wife we got some uh cute little Portuguese tiles here also even say Portugal on the side as places to put our cups down on so that's kind of cool so as I was editing today's video I realized it was 30 minutes long three zero and that's way too long for a video talking about how to start a business legally so I decided what I would do is I would chunk it up into two videos so this was part one you can see part two by clicking right over here thanks folks have a great day [Music]

Channel: Jim Hart

Views: 9,873

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Id: wqYQQeDiouM

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2023