There are numerous facets in forming and starting up a new business, selecting and using the right technologies to support the execution of critical tasks have made life easier and also made it in style. Tasks such as setting up an company online presence with a domain name, website, email etc has been made easier, and to save on the initial investment costs, some of these tools have an free trial period.
Consider the situation you maybe in, you have just decided to go “all in” in forming your new business idea, you are rapidly onboarding new and key members into your team; with this initial stage of your business formation may make or break you, with time-to-market been a key priority; and for this to be achieved, frictionless team work is a must.
How can you rapidly onboard new team members, some of which may only be with you for the initial few critical months of setting up your business? You need to provide all your team members with the necessary tools to collaborate effectively and securely without the administration overhead!
Having faced these questions and challenges myself when forming cykp; the solution to these challenges came organically, finding a solution for each problem / challenge / use-case as they come. Here I have decided to share my journey as a “case study” with the goal on assisting others who are considering to embark on forming a business; as not all businesses will have sufficient initial capital to hire experts to execute the initial formation of the business.
The following are in my opinion the initial key critical steps and a short deep-dive on how I executed some of these steps; showing that anyone can implement these initial critical steps in forming a new business… with a little bit of research, patience and “guts” to tackle these tasks.
- Naming your business – Sounds simple but finding a name that is “not taken” and matching your business is the first key task; this will entail you to search around the internet if the name you are seeking is already used with the final step buying the internet domain name
- Setting up your digital contact – Simply put this is getting an email address for you, using your business domain name; this will make your interactions with your potential customers and suppliers more professional as during the formation phase of your business you will be contacting may third parties and having a professional and “long-term” email address will make life a lot easier in the long-term, such as not needing to move from an initial @hotmail / @gmail to your future @mydomain email address. Getting this right from the beginning is important when you on-board new staff into your business; providing an unique digital contact (email address) for your new staff will allow them to interact outside your company but also more effectively collaborate internally in your new business. Having the right tools such as collaboration and communication tools that enable frictionless communication is in my opinion a key objective when forming a business as the initial days / weeks / months are key and busy will tasks related to business formation and sharing your presence to your potential customers and suppliers; you don’t want to be bog down and wasting your time due to inefficient communication
- Setting up your digital presence – This is your website, using your business domain name; having this space will enable easier and smoother collaboration with your third parties. I found the following two use-cases the most valuable; (i) having key information up on a website that you update regularly and sharing the website to your collaborators is easier than consistently email / message new information to them; and (ii) a “contact us” form on your website, what you don’t want to do is share your email out too early as you will be bombarded with a lot of “spam” email on companies that want to “help” you for a “small fee”, having a “contact us” page on your website will allow you filter these “annoying” emails easier and lets you focus on the real and important emails
- Getting your Business Registration – Here I do suggest to seek professional services such as an accounting firm (which I did) as they can navigate the completion of forms and the preparation of the necessary documents to open a business bank account and the “hardware” such as the “company chop”. Also depending on the type of company you are forming (such as a sole, partnership or limited) then there are more steps (such as a limited will require an “general meeting”). However it is possible to do this step yourself but at the end you cannot get away with hiring an accountant in the future so why not engage one at the beginning when forming your business?
- Opening your Business Bank Account – Most banks will have a “Small Business” banking team where you provide the necessary information and documents (such as your Business Registration documents) and evidence on your business venture (for example I provided design blueprint to the cykp wine storage facility) as part of their KYC process. This step usually just entails you arranging a meeting with the “Small Business” banking team of the bank of your choosing and if all your documentation is in order it will just take time
With the above steps completed, you are ready to go to start actually building your business!
From here I will share in detail on steps 1. Naming your Business, 2. Setting up your digital contact and 3. Setting up your digital presence; where with a little bit of research, patience and “guts” you can complete these tasks yourself!
These 3 tasks are related and here I have a high-level diagram showing the relationship and the tools that I have purchased, setup and using now.
After searching and finding an appropriate name for your business; go to an “Internet Domain Registrar” and see if the domain name is available for sale. An “Internet Domain Registrar” is an internet company that has the ability to purchase on your behalf the internet domain name; they will be the custodian of your internet domain name. Your internet domain name is your “address” (such as cykp.biz), as I will share further down this is just the “address” and not the “physical location” of where your internet presence will be (such as where your website will be physically located and your email will be physically stored); however some Internet Domain Registrar will provide these additional services to not only be the custodian of your internet domain name (“address”) but also “host” your internet presence as well (the physical location). The Internet Domain Registrar that I am using is GoDaddy (godaddy.com) and I only use them as the custodian of my internet domain names – yes, “domain names” as in plural, you can have multiple internet domain names pointing to the same “physical location”.
Setting up your digital contact (namely your email address or email addresses) is performed after you have purchased and own your internet domain name (such as cykp.biz). As mentioned the Internet Domain Registrar can provide additional services (at an additional cost of course) to setup your email addresses providing the physical location of your email; but I have found that if you purchase and setup your email yourself it is cheaper and also in the longer run more flexible as you can “upgrade” or “move” your email storage easier. I am using the Microsoft 365 Business Basic product provided by Microsoft here; which provides not just email but additional products such as the Microsoft Office tools (web and mobile only) which is a bonus as a business you will need some Modern Workplace tools which include collaboration tools.
There are numerous sites that go through the procedure of setting up a “custom domain” (namely the one you just purchased from the Internet Domain Registrar) to the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan; obviously the Microsoft website will be place to go to get the step-by-step (but over several different pages) instructions here. If you do run into issues during the setup process, a quick search on key works will usually yield some suggestions on how to resolve the issue you are facing; but in general if your Internet Domain Registrar is a “main stream” one (such as GoDaddy) then the process is quite seamless as the integration between these tech companies are already in place. Do note that the “DNS” entries may take sometime to take effect; the “DNS” entries that you are changing on the GoDaddy administration portal is like when you are “moving house”, you have to tell all your service providers (such as banks, phone company etc) of your new mailing address; it just takes time for that update to propagate around the world!
If you have purchased more than one internet domain name or inherited one from the previous business owner; you should consider migrating and consolidating all your internet domain names to one Internet Domain Registrar; you can search the FAQ pages of the Internet Domain Registrar and they will have a suggested process to perform this migration such as here. A single user created in Microsoft 365 can have an email address to each of the domain names you have purchased. For example, here at cykp we have two domain names; and through the one Microsoft 365 account I have peter@cykp.com and peter@vindeation.com; I only need to pay for 1 Microsoft 365 account and have both of these email addresses directed to the same email box, hence I get to see emails sent to both of these email addresses in the same email inbox. Microsoft 356 can also be configured to allow you to select the “sender” name (the from) when composing and sending an email so that you can have a consistent brand image when communicating with your customers and suppliers.
After setting up your digital contact, is your digital presence (namely your website). Similar to the situation with email, Internet Domain Registrar also provide additional services (for an additional cost) to host your website. However similar to the benefits of managing your own email (such as flexibility to change) you can also build and host your own website. The creation and subsequent maintenance of your new business’ website can be “evolution”, as your business expands your website can expand to include new features and functions (such as e-commerce); however you can “start small” first to get your internet presence started and enable some “self service” functionality for your customers and suppliers and then grow / upgrade / replace your website in the future. Hosting your own website may require more effort but in the longer run it will be more flexible and you have more options.
For the cykp.biz website, as it is mainly “content” base (information) I have opted to host the website on Microsoft Azure Web App using the WordPress platform. The setup and creation of the website can be divided into two steps:
- Creating the WordPress platform on Microsoft Azure Web App with details here; then
- Configure your custom domain to the WordPress platform here
In summary, the initial setup cost of a business formation is quite costly; some of the tasks you can do yourself using various cloud native enterprise grade products on the market which will save on some money but you will need to invest some time; for me it is part of the learning process of business formation.
Some additional tasks I will suggest to perform are:
- Enabling SSL on your website; this will allow for a smoother transition and enablement for your website to facilitate secure e-commerce transactions
- Enabling “two factor” authentication for you and your staff using any Microsoft 365 services (such as logging in to your email from a new device) to ensure your data and information is secure, with details here