So recently, I’ve been involved with helping out the family business.  I’ve been researching something called Eletronic Data Interchange, but more commonly known as EDI.  EDI is an electronic medium used to communicate transactions between companies.  Purchase orders and invoices are the main things I’m looking at, although it’s also used heavily by the medical field and a whole lot more.

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I love to ponder what if questions.  So in this episode of pondering, I thought about great business models, and wondered what if I were Meg Whitman and/or how life would be with a business like eBay.  Oh, in case you’re wondering who is Meg Whitman, she is the President and CEO of eBay.  Out of all the businesses out there, eBay is one that intrigues me because it’s, well, awesome.  By the way, I’m not that choosy, I wouldn’t mind being Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, or even poor Michael Dell.  But this is a post about what makes eBay so much better than Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, and Dell.

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As much as it might suck to pay taxes, if you’re making money on your own time, you should be paying it.  In fact, you have to pay it.

Two essential items you’d need to start your own business is a Federal and a State Tax ID.  Even if you’re not sure, or if you want to start another more complex business, it still makes sense to have your own sole proprietorship IDs.  The Federal ID, or EIN, is easy to get from the IRS.  The state version is a little harder…each state has it’s own website, and that’s where I’d start.

So get your IDs and starting making money!  You may want to check out my rough guide on starting your own online business as well.

I recently attempted to start my own online business with a friend, forming a Limited Liability Partnership.  It didn’t succeed, not because we didn’t have the right plan in place or resources available, but rather because we both just didn’t have time to dedicate to the business.  In fact, we had everything in place, the website was ready, the supply chains were setup, our operations were setup, and all we had to do was, in essense, flip the switch to accept payments and open up our website.  The entire business venture ended up costing a total of about ~$1,100, $700 was my part, the rest was my partner’s.  I think it was worth it.  We had our “business” for about 9 months.  And YES, we are still good friends.  We discussed the priorities before we started the business up…our friendship was #1.  Maybe I’ll talk about that later.  We never made a penny, but we learned a lot, at least I know I did.  Since we spent so much time researching and getting this setup, I might as well share what I learned so that maybe someone else will be able to start up their own business or, at the very least, I’ll have recorded the process so if I decide to start something up in the future, I’ll remember what I did. 

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Thanks to Frugal over at My 1st Million At 33 for digging my article “The Right Way To Quit Your Job and What To Do After.”

He’s hosting the Carnival of Business this week, so be sure to stop by.  I’ll be posting a couple of posts on this topic in addition to my normal ’schedule’ this week.

JLP has posted the first “How To…” guide.  It’s a great collection of “How To..” articles from around the PF world.  Stop by AllFinancialMatters and check it out as well!

Be sure to check back through the week…this should be an interesting one!