Starting a Business
Thinking about starting a business in Florida? If you are planning to incorporate, there are a lot of rules and regulations. This list of resources from the Florida Division of Corporations will help you understand what is required. Uncle Sam also wants to know who you are – if you start a company, you need to apply for a Federal Employer Identification number called an “FEIN”. Everyone wants a piece of your action, including the state. This list of the various taxes the state of Florida collects is helpful in determining what you need to be doing to remain in compliance with state regulations. There are also local regulations that vary on a county-by-county, city-by-city basis. Be sure to investigate these thoroughly before hanging out your shingle.
There are an astounding number of tax rules and regulations for the small business owner – make sure you are creating enough paperwork by checking this list of forms and publications from the IRS.
The University of Cincinnati maintains a nice list of legal resources related to corporate law. Find information specific to Florida Law at LawGuru.com
There are a great many kinds of agreements that govern business relationships. A non-disclose agreement (NDA) requires that the signer maintain strict confidentiality about what is seen, heard and experienced during the relationship with the party requiring the NDA. Here are several examples:
- Employee Invention and Confidentiality Agreement used by ITG Solutions, Inc.
- NDA for potential buyers of InfoToGo
- Vendor (Rackspace) NDA
- Generic NDA for use by my students in LIS4941, IT Practicum.
Students are often interested in seeing the business contracts I used as part of the InfoToGo sales process. Here are a few samples. Feel free to recycle these to meet your needs.
Finally, students often want help and advice about starting a technical business. The best advice I can offer is that failing to plan is planning to fail. You must think all the way through and around your idea and the best way to do this is to write a detailed business plan that includes pro forma financials. Here is an excerpt of my ITG business plan, written back in 2002 when I first contemplated starting ITG. It does not have a the pro formas and I cut out a lot of the detail but it will give you an idea of where to start when contemplating starting your technology-based business. Not sure what a financial statement is or how it is used? Maryanne Rouse of the USF College of Business prepared this brief tutorial about financial statements for the non-business student that you may find helpful.
If you want to see a typical non-compete agreement (one of the opportunity costs of selling), here is the one I had to sign with the buyers of InfoToGo.
