Who of you started a company already?

Hi! I started my own company with my wife and we're doing great, I hope some of these tips will help you!

Naturally start with your idea of what it is you want to do with your time and how you want to be paid for your efforts. From here you will decide what size of company you will be running, this will depend on what you're trying to achieve, will you have staff right away? Do you intend to sell shares/stock? Do you have investments to begin or are you starting small? This is important because it will effect the type of company you run, as a sole trader, a partner, etc

It can seem complicated at first, the different types of business have different rules and laws they must follow, different restrictions that may effect how you do business. Never worry! Look at other people with similar companies and you will quickly get ideas of what's already possible.

Google searches can confirm any local differences as most countries have different laws and regulations concerning business. You may also have access to free business advice locally something provided by some governments and also by non government organisations. I would encourage to anyone to see what was available locally as well as looking online, you really can't beat being able to sit and chat with someone who can answer your specific questions.

You will decide what level of involvement you will take with things like tracking and paying taxes, will you track and calculate it yourself? Or will you hire an accountant to do it for you? Naturally you can do it yourself but there are advantages to paying an accountant. They should already know the systems well enough to be able to save you money and better advise you on how to use things like business expenses. For example in the UK right now we pay 20% business tax on everything we earn so lets pretend we have a figure of £10,000 to pay in tax, it must be paid to the government by the end of the tax year but I can subtract £2,000 in expenses that year which was already spent on things like uniforms with the company name, resources for the company, tools, insurance. So in effect I would end up paying only £8,000 in tax that year. This is of course a very simplified example as what you can class as expenses will change from one industry to the next.

Social media offers you the chance to basically advertise for free, whichever networks your customers are on you should also have a presence. We get almost all of our new customers from social media and it offers a free way to stay in touch with our current clients too. One business I use Facebook and Instagram, another I also use YouTube. Social media lets you be visual and easily reach people. You can pay for targeted advertising which is more efficient than random advertising campaigns of the past.

I think that's a good place to start and by this point you should have a good chance of doing well. Just make sure you are familiar with your local laws and regulations, register your business properly and work hard! If you get stuck then don't be afraid to speak to people already in your industry, just try not to ask your direct competitors for advice, message someone impartial or far away enough they wont mind helping.