internet/ltd business set up

John101

Hi all

Your advice/goodlinks on this would be appreciated.

I am setting up a website and hopefully launching soon. I hope to be able to do most of the initial Webdesign myself to keep costs low. If the idea takes off it will make a lot of money and i will need to up date the website when the more technical side of the business kicks in. This will involve employing people etc

So shoud i set up a private company before i launch (Costs?) on the chance that the idea might work or should i wait and see. Will there be any penalties in converting a successful website into a company? are the tax benefits much better for a company?

Thanks

DOLEMAN

Wait and see.

Tax wise, unless the business is pulling in more than 100k a year, stay as a sole trader.

Making a successful website is harder than you think

paulocon

John,

In the middle of the same process myself.
All I can say is take things one step at a time.

It'll take a while to develop your site and get it live.
Then it'll take some time to market your site, you could be looking at months until you have a good search engine placement.

Depending on the business model, you may be running the site without profit for some time - at the moment, I am literally providing a service for free as I look to build up the sites traffic and exposure.

Set up as a sole trader. Registed with the CRO (no problem when you get your .ie domain name). Open a business account and take things from there.

If you want any more specific info, feel free to PM me..

John101

Thanks for the advice folks

The idea is very much in its infancy.

I have the plan for the website written down and all the associated text written out. If i am unable to build the basic website myself howmuch do you reackon it will cost to get a webdesigned to do it. It wont be too big or complicated to start with just a few pages photos etc and an ordering system paypal. I will have to buy webdesign software Frontpage maybe. but if it doesnt cost that much more to go profesionally maybe i should go that way. i am currently messing around with sitegenwiz software from free downloads.com dont know if it is nay good though?

Also recomendations on top hosting companies would really be appreciated.

Thanks again
il get them in when im rich

paulocon

John,

Just a few points.

Don't underestimate the design side of things. Very important to have a well designed site especially given that you are looking for people to purchase something from you. If something doesn't look professional, most likely people will keep credit cards in their wallets.

Dreamweaver is probably the best WYSIWYG package out there. You might also be looking at putting a database on the backend (for products etc).. I would highly recommend PHP/MySQL for this.

I would have issues with Paypal - can be hard to get people to use it. Mostly, people prefer something pretty seamless..

As regards hosting. Have a good think about what you need (PHP, ASP...). There are plenty of companies out there such as HostIreland, Letshost.ie, JaguarPC.com...

I've done plenty of projects along these lines so if you need help, send me a PM and I'll give you my email address. I do some design jobs from time to time depending on availaibility of time..

byte

If you're site is for selling stuff, maybe use an Open Source script already available, and modify it to suit your site's style.

For commercial use, I think OSCommerce is very good and worth a look.

This script does require PHP and MySQL, which you'll most likely need anyway.

Graham

I wouldn't worry about setting up a limited company to mitigate taxes or expenses yet there will be plenty of time for that if/when your business starts making money.

Concentrate your efforts on building the site and attracting customers, the few quid you might save by considering the tax implications of a €0 income company are nothing compared to the time you could have spent actually building a revenue stream. That said, if you're convinced the site is going to be making a 6 figure sum in it's first year then go and pay for professional advice.

You're obviously not very far into the development process of your site, so whatever you think the "soon" launch date is, I'd triple your timescales.

Setting up a LTD company isn't cheap, figure a few hundred for initial setup costs then add another €1200 per year in accountacy/audit fees and you won't be too far out.

As for costs for a web designer, what do you want? A 5 page site with a paypal "buy it now" button for a single product is likely to be a magnitude cheaper than an online store with 50 products of varying specifications. Without more detail suggesting a suitable technology/store-front is pointless.

Hosting again is a bit open-ended. Where are your customers? Does your site need 99.9% uptime? Do you want to trust your site to someone that offers hosting as a sideline or would you rather have a professional company do it for you?

Final piece of advice; if you're going to contract out the development of your site, be very careful how/who you choose. There's a million "amateur" website developers out there that will take on your project for peanuts, just be aware that a 17 year old with a copy of dreamweaver does not necessarily(usually) get you a professional site. Your website is your shop, your store-front, your image, your reputation.

Best of luck with your venture anyway, hope it all works out for you.

John101

Thanks for all the great advice guys much appreciated

The site is ready for its basic development. When launched the site will be very basic maybe 7 or 8 pages with a simple ordering system. It will only get complicated if it gets popular and the more advanced features of my business plan will then kick in. by then i should have enough to employ profesionals for the difficult development.

paulocon

John,

One thing.
When building your site, leave plently of space for expansion as regards features etc. A well designed site (and database if applicable) now will save you a lot of time later on..