As part of rethinking the corporate grind, you may want to start your own thing.  Whether it is a side business or your main thing, hopefully I can help you as I start my own.

I’ve spent a week working to get this site up and running, and as you can tell, it is a work in progress…much like my business.  I am definitely not a techie.

Here are the steps I’ve taken in the past week:

1. I decided to take the plunge.  Whether you are pushed, have decided to do it yourself, or a combination of both – this is a big deal!
2. I formed my own company.  Cost $300 to file with the state.  Fortunately, I have a close friend who is a lawyer and an entrepreneur, so he spent some time on the phone with me and handled the paperwork.
3. I bought the domain names associated with my business.  Domain names are simply the url’s – the web address that you type into your browser (internet explorer, safari, firefox, etc.)  I used namecheap.com, and I recommend them.  Easy to use, and relatively inexpensive at under $100 for multiple domains.
4. I set up hosting for my site.  Hosting is simply the servers that run your website.  I’m using A Simple Orange.  Fantastic support – online chat helped me tremendously.  Inexpensive at less than $5 a month.
5. As part of site hosting, I installed wordpress.  WordPress allows you to set up the bones of a website, and it provides structure for millions of websites.  And it is free for the self-hosted version!

In the next few posts, I’ll take you through the other resources that I’m using as I launch my website and my online alter-ego.

Do you have any questions about “how to?”