good morning one of the regular questions that I get asked is how do I
start a business or rather what do I do from a legal perspective to start a
business one of the steps are educate and people are most concerned when they
ask me this question with the legal or regulatory steps too many to take what
is the bureaucratic stuff involved and what legal steps as to say people need
to take before they start a business good news is that it's not too difficult
in Ireland from a legal perspective to start a business or startup a your own
enterprise and first thing though you need to do and there's a couple of basic
steps you will need to consider one is the structure you're gonna set up or
trade under in the four senses there's essentially three ways you can trade or
carry on your business even if you're doing it on a part-time basis and even
if you're sticking on with your existing job and you intend perhaps even working
from home at the beginning structure three ways to do sole trader partnership
or limited liability company now if you're a sole trader you are liable for
any debts arising from your activities so you don't have any limitation on your
liability you're completely open as it were to any debts arising now that may
not be very significant if you start off in a very very small way in the first
instance but it is something to bear in mind that you don't have the benefit of
a limited liability situation which comes with a limited liability company a
limited liability company down on the other hand you could set up a company
and trade away and have the benefit of being a separate legal entity and you
have limited liability in other words if the business goes bad if it goes wrong
goes into liquidation goes post then the limit the liability is limited to the
amount of the paid up church in other words you personally unless
you've given personal guarantees are not going to be on the hook for the debts of
the company because the company remember is a separate legal entity and it's not
actually you that throws the money then in that situation it's the company so
that's the first thing structure sole trader partnership or limited company
the second thing you're going to need to do is register with the revenue equation
errs for taxation purposes so you're gonna be paying tax either if you're a
limited liability company you're gonna be paying corporation tax at the
corporation tax rate and if you're going to be trading as a sole trader as a
partner you're gonna be paying tax on self assessment basis but in any event
you will need to rather to register with the Revenue Commissioners for taxation
purposes you'll also need to consider the VAT
situation do you need to register for VAT and you'll also need to consider
whether you need to register as an employer how these things can be sorted
out very very easily by your accountant you should have an accountant to give
you a hand with this type of thing you can set up a limited company handy
enough there's plenty of company formation agents and services out there
simply do a google search you'll go to any solicitor they'll be able to help
you and you can actually buy a company off the shelf as well another thing that
you might consider is the domain name that you're going to use in your
business if you have a website and I'd strongly recommend us I would strongly
recommend a country code TLD let's top-level domain so that's a just ie
domain and in Ireland the body that looks after das is the AED or dot ie so
go there and have a look and see what name you want to register as a domain
name and register your domain name then as a daata eak you will need to fill out
a form and give some reason as to why you're titled a particular domain name
but I would if you're an Irish base certainly ensure that you get a donna
eaves which it will rank better in the search engines another thing you need to
consider is getting some advice from professional advisors you should also
consider going to the local enterprise offices however and I think there's a
local enterprise office in each County they have a lot of resources about a
hell of a lot of assistance and they'll give you good guidance and good
information in relation to finance and so on and so forth so from a legal or
regulatory perspective that's really all you need to do you can start trading
then from an office like this office here for example you can start sailing
obviously from a shop you know if you take on a lease or a license or you can
even start trading from home particularly if you are setting up some
sort of an online business that might be run or operated from home and you may be
looking to spread your risk and restrict your risk at the first in the early days
by maybe staying on in your job and fortunately running the business as a
part-time operation that's a decision for yourself to other things however I
would advise you of number one is to be aware of spoofer in other words there
will be people who will spring up and who will offer their services their
expert services in particular areas of activity for example digital marketing
or social media marketing you need to be happy wits about you anybody can claim
to be an expert in anything but you need to be careful that you're actually
getting through expertise from somebody who is offering you some sort of a
service whether it's Web Design whether it's SEO search engine optimization
whether it's online or digital marketing whether it's social media marketing
whether it's email marketing whatever it is just make sure that the are actually
expert has to say it's easy to claim that you're expert and those industries
are particularly easy to move in and move out of and claim expertise so
beware of spoof errs and charlatans there's a lot of them out there the
people who genuinely know what they're doing with people who practices and
cuyahoga execute
and strategies on a daily basis and build a business on the basis of their
ability to market themselves on their business online unders other people who
don't who talk a good game was in fact have no experience of actually getting
down there and down and dirty with the likes of Facebook advertising YouTube
advertising YouTube development brand building Instagram social media
marketing generally email marketing and so on so to say beware the spoof errs
second thing I would and second tip I give you is to work that matters what I
mean by that is when you're starting a business you're gonna need to generate
customers and clients and you're gonna need to generate revenue cash is king
they say that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king huh well in
business cash is king and you need to generate customers but you need to
generate clients but to go back to my second tip do well that matters what I
mean by that is don't get carried away or distracted by looking at stuff like
metrics that don't matter in other words likes and shares and
nominations for awards if they're especially is a making of awards and so
on don't amount to a hill of beans if you're not generating clients generating
customers generating revenue that's how you grow your business so be very very
intentional and be very discerning about doing work that matters and work that
looks like it looks good but it's basically shallow and ephemeral and will
not really help you to build your business I hope you find this video
useful if you do you might give a thumbs up down below and thank you for your
attention thank you for your support on my youtube channel as well