Advice needed.... How to set up 3 different businesses?

HappyKate

Hi guys,

I'm looking for any advice...

I have 3 business ideas at the moment. The thing is that the ideas are very different but I want to develop each of them separately: 2 of them e-commerce type (selling my hand-crafts) and another one is design studio.

I'd like to start working officially ASAP, I mean self-employment or setting up a company..
What is the best way in my case - going self-employed or setting up a company?
Is it possible to create 3 different business names being self-employed? I need an .ie domain for each of my business ideas and I don't know what is the best way of getting 3 of them??
What would be the tax system for 3 of my businesses?

I'm going for a professional advice in 2 weeks time but any advice is much appreciated!

Thank you!
Kate

Kinetic^

HappyKate wrote: »

What is the best way in my case - going self-employed or setting up a company?

Sales on goods is going to subject to VAT of 21% and according to this link on revenue.ie your design services are also subject to 21%, if your turnover/sales is over €75,000 in a year. Just to clarify, that's total sales and no profit, some people make the mistake of thinking it's based on profit.

HappyKate wrote: »

Is it possible to create 3 different business names being self-employed?

Yes. Just register on www.cro.ie for the business names, you can have as many as you like.

HappyKate wrote: »

I need an .ie domain for each of my business ideas and I don't know what is the best way of getting 3 of them??

Registering a business name is going to be easiest way of getting them. Once you have done that you can go to any of the local web hosting companies online and register the name, providing your business name registration number.

HappyKate wrote: »

What would be the tax system for 3 of my businesses?

Do you expect your sales of the 3 to go over €75,000? Are you going to be employing anyone? If no is the answer to both then I'd probably just setup as a sole trader for the initial 12-24 months and then re-evaluate where all 3 businesses are.


Hope the design work is still going well, your designs for myself and a couple of friends were great.

1 at a time Kate. For a thousand reasons. Starting a business is a full time job, you should be spending min 12 hours a day 1 of them when its getting started.
Think of it like a full time job starting a business, you cant start 3 full time jobs at once

Axwell

Kinetic^ wrote: »

if your turnover/sales is over €75,000 in a year

The VAT threshold for supply of services is €37,500 not €75,000 so all 3 businesses do not fall under the same threshold.

Kinetic^

Axwell wrote: »

The VAT threshold for supply of services is €37,500 not €75,000 so all 3 businesses do not fall under the same threshold.

Does that apply to services charged at standard rate? Presuming it does.

ssbob

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Does that apply to services charged at standard rate? Presuming it does.

Kinetic there is no "standard rate" of VAT, VAT is categorized.

OP, you can operate as three seperate businesses but for the sake of tax purposes you should register as a sole trader and account for these as one, otherwise you would have to set up 3 different ltd companies which can be seriously time consuming and your accountant may charge you three times rather than once when doing end of year returns etc.

As El Rifle said, just focus on one business but from what I can see all of the above would be similar enough and I feel you could roll them all into one business but just keep an eye on your 3 different operations as such.

hope this helps.

DubTony

Hi Kate,

I'd think hard about setting up 3 businesses at once. At the moment I have an idea that will eventually be the one stop shop for a particular consumer service. The magnitude of putting this together becomes more apparent every day. And that's just the primary service. If I was to think about providing all the services at once, I'd never get the correct focus to actually get started.

If I were you I'd look at the one business that has the potential to be most profitable. Take some of the profits from that to start the next one and so on.

I feel that if you were to start all three at once you'd be swamped and ... well, you could change your username here to UN-HappyKate.

Best of luck.

Kinetic^

ssbob wrote: »

Kinetic there is no "standard rate" of VAT, VAT is categorized.

21% VAT is called the standard rate of VAT.

HappyKate

Hi guys,

Thanks for replies
Almost everything is clear now.

I want to set up exactly 3 businesses because each of them could bring me some cash.
Two of them are my hobbies and can't bring me a serious cash but my friends like what I do and want me to do that. I just want to sell my stuff oficially through the websites i'll set up. I would say they are just for fun. I don't expect a big profit selling my crafts.

The main business I'll focus on is a design studio.
At the beginning I would go freelance and offer just digital production creating service like logos, leaflets, package design etc.
My main aim is to set up the highest quality and of course not cheap service.
How do you think, guys.... Would you spend big money on really good bespoke design service? Are you in need of a good creative design studio?

Thanks again for your time and replies!

YouBuyLocal

Hey HK,

How are you thinking of developing the craft business? Are you going to use Etsy.com or are you going to get an eshop like on FB? I am doing something in the same space and I'd love to get feedback from prospective crafters like yourself.

I will also be looking for promotional material, but I am boot-strapping it in my business so maybe if you pm me I can give some advice and see what happens. I know a little bit about the crafting industry and will continue making a lot of connections (thousands over the next few months).