November 25, 2005

New Website

When trying to grow a new business [hazelnutcafe.net] it's important to get you name out there so people can see what you can do and what you have done. In the spirit of growing I've released some tutorials [hazelnutcafe.net] on OpenMap stuff that were previously hosted here and I also provide some utilities and free software [hazelnutcafe.net] for developers.

That being said, I've also developed (pro bono) a site for one side of my family, The Cook's Place.net. It gave me a chance to test out some new stuff and the best ways to integrate this stuff. Namely, drupal [drupal.org] and Gallery. I think that the combination of these two products offers a kick-ass site that is super easy to maintain.

Finally, I'm working on a new product in the same vein as Portable CE, as mentioned in this post [lunaflare.net]. Sooner or later I will have some news on this.

Posted by Guy at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2005

The Business

I've blogged in the past about starting a small business for various reasons and I actually went through with it. Of course, my paperwork went through sometime in September, but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. The business is a software services business called Hazelnut Cafe.

I think the hardest decisions I had to make were (1) what type of business and (2) what the name the business. Once you compare all the different types of businesses picking the type of business for yourself kind of falls out. Of course this can be swayed by how much money you want to pay and how much paperwork you want to file. I went with the easiest form of business, a sole-proprietership (I think that's the spelling) in order to be up and running with as little overhead as possible.

Posted by Guy at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 20, 2005

Another Venture?

My wife and I decided not to buy a house this year, which means that we're going to get killed in taxes (DINC!). So I'm trying to find was to legally mitigate that. Of course there's charitable donations, but unless you're making donations on the size of like 10% of your income it's not going to help.

I've always wanted to own my own business and eventually make it my full time job. So, I thought to myself why not start it early and gain some of the tax benefits this year. Obviously the first year and probably the second are money losers. This lose can be applied to our taxes and voila! I have more assets, a business to grow and less taxes.

As a plus, if I wanted to keep doing this as a so-called Hobbyist Business then I can (almost) never show a profit as long as I can prove that I'm trying to make a profit.

Now it all comes down to 1) filing the correct paperwork, 2) making sure that I keep track of business expenses and 3) coming up with some semi-viable business plan. Sounds easy to me. I bouth Nolo's Small Business Start-Up Kit and it seems to have fairly good advice. I now know a little more about tax law and what paperwork I need to file. Their section on what type of business to start was phenominal and made the book worth it right there.

More on this as it unfolds. Hey, maybe my business will be a blog on starting a business...hmm....

Posted by Guy at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)