Small Business Start Up To Do List: Life Gets in the Way of the Party Business

Let me tell you, Dina and I were really pumped about Bash in a Box after the huge Cocktail Bash success and all the positive feedback we received. We also felt we had a decent handle on what we were going to roll out for the launch and we created this really achievable timeline for doing it. Then life hit hard. There were family illnesses, personal illnesses, and work complications. I had to get a new day job since the bank still wants me to pay the mortgage. Dina needed to travel more for her day job. So I thought this would be a good time to help all those of you out there that are interested in starting a business of your own. I searched many times to find a handy to do list for the Bash in a Box start up. There were some that came close but nothing really worked for me and the one blog I thought was great disappeared after 3 posts. I hope this list for starting a small business helps you :D

This is a list of our first year business startup activities. If you want more details on any of this drop me a line at kim@bash-in-a-box.com.

Online Party Planning and Supply Business Start-up Steps:

1. Market Research: Figure out what you want to to and if others are doing it.

• We has our concept from that great lunch and the back of the napkin planning.

• We tried to find others who are doing what we want to do. We looked to see if our product is already being sold and if so to who

• There are many party sites for children and a few party sites for adults but most are paper oriented, involve crafts or VERY pricey. We think there is a middle ground for an adult oriented party site for working women that is easy to use

1. Establish a name and see if a domain is available.

• We conducted an on-line search for our favorite domain names. Our first and second choice was taken. So we morphed “party in a box” to “Bash in a Box” and got our own .com domain name. We used Go Daddy but there are other vendors out there

• We then paid for a few similar names within our budget to boost our SEO. More about SEO in a later blog post

1. Determine Business Type

• We did research on the different types of business, different states to open a business, taxes and what legal restrictions there are for our products

• We decided on an LLC based in Nevada with only prepackaged shelf stable foods

• We got a TIN (tax identification number) for Federal Taxes (many vendors need this to provide whole sale pricing)

• We got a Foreign Agent license for the state we keep our stock (not needed if you incorporate and stock is in the same state)

1. Research & Development

• We designed and wrote the key element for each of our parties the – Party Planner

• We decided on the packaging - a white square box with individual items wrapped like gifts (when possible)

• We decided on initial price points based on costs and our target market

• We developed the Bash baseline concepts and the unique features of each party

• We tested the products for each party to ensure they meet our quality standards and made sense with the overall party experience

• We created a logo (we are on the second iteration of Bash-in-a-Box)

• We created a website. We decided to go with WIX to speed up time to market and cut down on development costs. This limits some of our functionality so we will need to revisit that decision soon. We had some extra work to do configuring it for sales – don’t leave that part out ;)

• We choose baseline software for our day to day activities and got an email service. We choose Microsoft Office 365

• We already had personal computers and a storage space so our start up costs were quite low - shelving, printing, packaging and wholesale products

1. Sourcing

• No matter what you are selling you need to obtain the raw materials to create it. This is called sourcing and the goal is to find the sweet spot between value, cost and profit.

• I had to find out where to get the contents for our boxes at wholesale prices with enough margin to make a profit to cover R&D and perhaps one day our salaries

• This is an ongoing process that I hope to get much better at. I decided that trying to create relationships with vendors and using their products for multiple boxes will be better than volume pricing from China. Our goal is to use small vendors and American made whenever possible

1. Get Key Accounts

• Determined what bank to use, get an account, link to pay pal. To the extent possible keep your business expenses separate from your personal expenses

• Get an accountant for taxes and lawyer to review terms and conditions and privacy statement

• Get a google analytics account to analyze website traffic

• Get accounts with all key vendors

• Choose a shipping method and get an account there too. We choose UPS

1. Determine Marketing Strategy – figure out how who you want to buy the product and how to get them to the website – we are still working on this one

2. Launch website

3. Keep good records of all your purchases for Federal tax

4. Don’t forget to pay state sales tax

5. Continue product development

• Always optimize value and stay current

1. Continue Refinement

• Improve sourcing, website and marketing

1. BALANCE it all with family and friends and fun

Most of these tasks I have never done before and never for my own business - so I researched each step. Lucky for us Dina, in all of her creativity, has designed websites before so at least we have that going for us.

Thankfully everyone who was sick is on the road to recovery and that is what matters most! Plus the mortgage is paid :)

I’ll provide more business startup information in future blogs so please sign up for blog post notifications. I promise we won’t sell your info and we won’t spam you.

If you have comments or suggestions please email me at Kim@bash-in-a-box.com

Cheers!