Shore Thing

There’s a specific kind of business advice that circulates endlessly in small business Facebook groups, and some of it is genuinely useful. A lot of it is confidently wrong, delivered by someone who did one thing once and is now certain it’s universal law. I don’t say this to be dismissive of community advice generally — some of it is great, and peer support matters. I say it because “someone in a group told me” is, alarmingly often, the actual foundation of a decision that s

I talk to a lot of people who started their business in the wrong order. Not wrong like catastrophically wrong — wrong like they’re going to have to redo some things and it’s going to be annoying. Here’s the order I recommend: 1. Name your business and check availability. Before you fall in love with a name, make sure it’s available as an LLC in your state, check the USPTO trademark database, and grab the domain. In that order. 2. Form your LLC. File with your state’s Secreta