Earlier this year, I was in a situation where I literally started a business in 2 days. After finding out that I was about to have a severe reduction in hours at my contract seamstress job, I managed to make the following things happen:
A business name: Clothing Hospital – I needed to make it crystal clear to people that I was there for fixing/mending/altering their clothes. I was not there to make things from scratch.
A logo: My logo depicts exactly what my business does.
A location: I couldn’t run this out of my home. Luckily I have friends that are kind enough to let me work out of their space. [Thank you April at Fabricker]
A phone number: you really don’t want to use your personal number for your business. With tools like Google Voice, you don’t need to.
Business cards: I made a small batch of cards on my home printer until I could place an order.
Web site: Sadly, the url I wanted was taken. Since I was low on time, I decided to add a page for the store front to my existing web portfolio.
Social Media: as much as I dislike having to keep an eye on all of this stuff, maintaining a Facebook and Twitter presence is a necessary evil.
DBA: I was already listed as a sole-proprieter in Travis County with a DBA of Spinsta, but I went ahead and filed this one too.
Sales Tax: Because of my other business venture, I already had a permit.
Marketing: Having worked in the industry before, I went through my existing client list, and sent out a targeted message to all the businesses that had sent me referrals.
I did all of this in two days. I got a text about the downsizing on Wednesday, and Saturday I was in my new space.
