Thinking about a business
Other than James asking me whether I wanted to set up a parent company, and then replying “sounds good” we haven’t actually done anything towards setting it up. My idea of how things are going to go are get the beta finished, set up a business, release, watch the money roll in. I doubt it will be quite that easy, so I started looking into it today.
The BusinessLink website hosts a wealth of information about setting up your own business, all the different types there are, what you need to do, and ideas of how much it is going to all cost. The don’t specifically (from what I can find) have any information regarding setting up an e-business but by looking around at different parts you can find the bits you need.
The two types of business that look suitable to us are a private limited company or a limited liability partnership. Both are registered limited companies, so any debts incurred by the company will have to be paid by it, not the induviduals involved within it. The main difference between the two is the a private limited company has to pay taxes on income, and on behalf of employees, where as in a limited liability partnership the profits are shared among partners who have to pay their own taxes.
To setup your own company you do not need anyone special such as a solicitor to do anything, but to setup a private limited company you need a couple of documents. The first is a Memorandum of Association which details what a company does and its name and address, and the second is a Articles of Association which says what a company does and how it is run. Both are legally binding documents and as such most are written up by solicitors, although you can do it yourself. There are a number of online companies that claim to provide you samples and do it for you at a much lower cost than solicitors. A couple of simple forms such as your names and addresses need to be filled in as well and then sent off with your cheque for £20 to Companies House. You can even get so called ‘company formation agents’ who will do all of this for you, but I expect they charge a lot.
Anyway, I shall keep you updated with what happens. If anyone knows of any other good resourses post them here or email me!
Other Stuff
Well for the next two weeks I have got basically no lectures (woo!) but unfortunately have to revise for exams. As or James I think he is in the same sort of position, but he is not having much luck with his internet connection at uni so we haven’t really had chance to discuss much. I will probably get the third (and final) part of my tutorial up sometime next week as well.