Playbooks, deep-dives, and product updates for entrepreneurs building with AI.
This week: keep your card on file for business renewals, add business formation to any WordPress site, and design products that price exactly what prints.
Not a showcase - a tool. The few things a small business website must do well before anything fancy.
Most disputes start with nothing in writing. The handful of agreements that cover nearly every small business.
The customers you already have are the cheapest ones to sell to again. A plain, honest email list is how you reach them.
Most local customers search before they call. The free steps that put your business in front of them.
Before your first hire's first day: the forms, the registrations and the payroll setup that keep you out of trouble.
Forming the company makes it exist. Licenses and permits are what let it operate - and they come from more than one place.
A separate account is not a formality. It protects your liability shield, simplifies taxes, and makes you look like a real business.
A deduction you cannot prove is a deduction you do not have. What usually counts, and how to keep records without a shoebox.
When you work for yourself, nobody withholds tax from your pay. The IRS still wants it during the year - four times.
Forming somewhere else rarely saves a small business money. Here is when it does, and when it doubles your paperwork.
You do not file it with the state, and nobody may ever ask for it. It still decides whether your LLC protects you.
Forming the company is one filing. Keeping it alive is a filing every year, and missing it has consequences most owners only discover later.
Doctors, lawyers, accountants and other licensed professionals often cannot use a standard LLC. Here is what to form instead.
The filing fee is the number everyone quotes. It is rarely the number you end up paying.
What it is, why every state insists on one, and the reason using your home address can go badly.
An S corp is a tax election, not a company type. Here is the number that decides whether it is worth it for you.
