Metropol

Myself and my girlfriend are starting our own business developing software. I'm doing the software dev, and she's doing the accounts, marketing, artwork, etc etc (basically everything else from home)

initially, i am going to continue with my full time job until i have sufficient monies to leave.

has anybody got any insights on running your own business. we have just registered our company name with companies house, so we're currently waiting for all the stuff to come through. it's quite exciting, but stuff like having to contact the local concil to evalute your tax rate is a little intimidating. any good sources for 'checklists' of things i must do, such as any other autorities i must inform.

due to the time frame required, i will not be taking any income for sometime, so having to falk out large amounts of money initally is quite concerning.

many thanks in advance for any help

If you haven't done it already - contact your local business gateway office, they are very very helpful and can put you in touch with many different people. They also offer training for different skill areas that you may feel you want to touch up on.

http://www.startups.co.uk/ is a good information point, useful reading through the case studies..etc

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/ same again.. useful info.

Inland Revenue - get in touch with them and speak to them. It's not as bad as you think....

Also if you feel like it get in touch with your bank and arrange an appointment with your manager/advisor/dude to make sure your banking is suitable for you.

Hope this helps

Oh, and another thing... good luck

Well done on trying to start something new.

First, if you haven't sent your cheque off to Companies House yet, don't make your company limited (unless your accountant has specifically advised you to). Running a limited company (as I do) is a nightmare of paperwork, plus the Revenue will look funnily on a company declaring turnover but not paying its directors (which could also land you in trouble over the minimum wage, believe it or not).

Make siure you and your girlfriend have partnership agreements drawn up between you, and try to surreptitously load any agreements in your favour. If you break up and something comes of the business down the line, she'll be well within her rights to screw you.

Don't buy a property - it's very expensive and business rates can be crippling. Go for serviced offices - you'll get your post services handled for nothing, a secretary to answer calls in your company name and your business rates will be included in your rental. You won't have to faff on with shit like getting telephone lines installed and so on if you rent.

When you say developing software, who are you developing it for?

I want to start my own music/production/voiceover company as soon as possible. I've already made a draft business plan, but as we all know (well, we SHOULD all know), that the business plan will MAKE or BREAK the business!

thank you for your insights, babyben and jb.

i have already registered my company through companies house, haven't got the certificate of incorporation or anything through yet, but we decided to go for a limited company, simply to limit our own liability in case of collapse.

fortunately, as it is, to get the business started, we don't need a outlay a massive amount of money - all the hardware i already own, and all i need is time to make it work. my girlfriend has a 50% stake in the company, which she has agreed to take in return for her services (book keeping and all that stuff - she's done it for her dad before so i haven't got any worries about that)

the software we're developing is basically anything the customer requires, in my time, i've created access control systems, swipe systems, academic records systems, room booking, it helpdesk job tracking, automatic password generation, and countless utilities. i'm currently working on a project which allows rapid creation of boot disks for reimaging computers at my current place of work.

i am going to set up a business account shortly, and invest a few quid into so i can stick some adverts in the local paper.

we're currently not trading, but as soon as i've got all the paper work sorted, i will be proactively looking for customers.