W06 Reflection: Legal Structure

This week has been exciting and a bit complicated. I am excited to be figuring out all these legal particulars as it means I am that much closer to launching my business. Which is also a little terrifying. I find myself (almost) hoping that I won’t have any clients. Partly because I’m nervous about doing a good job and partly as a defense of setting my expectations low so I’m not disappointed. I’m doing a sole proprietorship because that seems like the right choice for my business, but the liabilities make me a little nervous, so I almost wish I was doing an LLC. My current plan is to start as a sole proprietor and the make the transition to LLC. But even that is a little unappealing because it would mean paying the one-time new business start-up fees all over again, plus the LLC fees. It still seems to fit my current situation the best.

It’s complicated because of the sales tax. I have many hours trying to unravel my legal tax obligations. I think I have figured out my state obligations for an interactive analyst service. Although, learning about retail sales tax has introduced a question that I haven’t been able to answer yet.

• I am to collect and remit a “Service and Other Activities” B&O sales tax for the state of Washington.
• Retail sales to out-of-state buyers require recipient specific state sales tax to be collected and remitted for each different state, but only if a certain sale quantity threshold is met.

Which makes jumbles my brain into asking:

1. Do I follow this pattern for the “Service and Other Activities” B&O type sales tax and collect and remit sales tax according to client billing state? Are there thresholds before the tax applies?
1. If not, do I collect the Washington state “Service and Other Activities” B&O sales tax from everyone, regardless of what state they live in?
2. Or do I only collect that sales tax from Washington state residents?

I’m also interested in participating in digital download sales on my website in the future, so figuring out the digital sales tax issue is interesting to me as well.

The complication of out-of-state sales feels pretty overwhelming. It’s almost a tipping point of if I bother with an online business or not. I really want to move forward with this, but the out-of-state sales taxes are so complicated as to be disempowering and excessively time consuming.

I think I have it sorted out that digital retail sales only count in certain states and retail sales only count after certain thresholds in each state, so if I don’t hit those thresholds I don’t collect/remit state specific sales taxes nor do I collect/remit WA state sales tax from out-of-state residents. And I think that is also how I treat the B&O sales tax.

W05 Reflection: Site Design

I really appreciate mindful web design when I am a visitor to a website, even when I have not fully recognized what I liked about a website. I can generally identify what I do not like about a website before I can spot what appeals to me, so the reading materials this week helped me understand what I was responding to.

I am concerned about images for my website. My job a few years ago included choosing stock images to use for articles and various areas of the website. I was always struck by how redundant the selection was for my assigned topics, so that worries me. However, I am hopeful that it will be easier to design the website now that it is my own and a topic that I am passionate about, instead of working to illustrate someone else’s passion. I really enjoyed the design element of that job, but it was often a struggle to figure out what would make my employers happiest.

I also enjoyed experimenting with colors through Paletton. My mother is an artist and loves the science behind the color wheel, her paintings always have amazing colors. She taught me about this growing up, I am still aware of it to some extent, but it was never something that I could intuitively manipulate the way she could. This tool is so helpful in overcoming uncertainty in my choices. It makes quicker work of choosing what I like that also works well and eliminating everything else.

W04 Reflection: Site Builder & Hosting

This week was confusing. Everything started out well enough with choosing a website builder. The module items had some solid information and guidance for choosing which really helped me understand my options and the types of products that are available. I appreciated the few specific ones that were highlighted with videos as well.

In contrast was the material about choosing a hosting company. I felt basically abandoned to collect data on this topic independently. Which was fine, I am willing to put in the research time to find information and solutions, but this ended up being a disappointing rabbit hole that quickly left me with 30+ internet tabs open. None of which really improved the situation. The reading material provided by the course was limited and other links lacked guidance on the various types of hosting companies and ways of narrowing down the options. I think it would be helpful to have some reading material on hosting categories to better understand which types are useful or acceptable for certain generalized parameters to better narrow the selection pool.

I connected with a tutor for some help with understanding the hosting world. It was a little helpful and she was able to help me feel more comfortable with my choices. But it's not a true comfort, more along the lines of thinking it will probably work out but I still have no idea why or how. I just still don't understand what my hosting needs are or how to assess what they are and then find a company that fits those needs. In the end, she seemed more confident that I knew what I was doing then I am. I told her that, but she felt my defined business scope was a significant asset for this process. I understand that in terms of the overall project, but it doesn't seem to eliminate my hosting confusion.

I look forward to financially committing to a hosting company and moving on to the next challenge.

W03 Reflection: Sourcing the Product

Even though I chose drop shipping for Joe's group, I don't think it would be right for me. Learning about the risks associated with drop shipping made me anxious while also being intrigued by the idea. The affiliate method just didn't seem to have enough opportunity for a diversified business experience. I really think Joe's group should plan to use multiple models for the same company. Maybe start with affiliate while they build their brand and content, then add drop shipping for experiences dealing with customers.

The material this week had me wondering how either of these methods would apply to the genealogy world. I did some research and found a several options quickly. This surprised me, I am probably not imaginative enough because when I read about a few of the options they seemed obvious in the end. Drop shipping mostly involved research books or fill-in-the-blank family tree posters. Affiliate programs were mostly connected to Ancestry.com and its subsidiaries or DNA testing companies. 

I'm not certain either appeals to me for my future but I want to keep an open mind at this point. There could be some potential with either. Maybe drop shipping specific family history research books if I became passionate about their contents and usefulness. I am already enthusiastic about Ancestry.com and could incorporate an affiliate relationship with them and a few other companies into my business. But I don't think I would enjoy either as my primary business model as I really want to work with people on their research somehow. I feel like these options would take me away from that if it was my main source of income. 

W02 Reflection: Choosing a Business

This week has been an interesting one filled with new perspectives to consider as I move forward with my plan to become a professional in the family history research world. I have a few generic ideas about my future in genealogy, but I haven’t considered how the business model plays an important role in setting up the business.

I have felt that Heavenly Father has been leading me to this career path for a long time. Now more than ever I want to make sure that I listen to the promptings of the Spirit when choosing how I want to contribute to genealogy and the best way to set up my business so that I can be most effective.

My major right now is Family History Research and the past two semesters have opened my eyes to the vast quantity of alternative careers within genealogy that I had never considered or heard of before. I think taking the business model into consideration will help me narrow down my choices and find something to begin with that fits my interests and skills.

An Affiliate model appeals to me more than a Merchant model, but Merchant is more likely the one that I need to use when contracting with clients for the various services that I’d like to offer. I can see potential in layering these together and using an Affiliate model in helping connect people to services they want or need that I don’t offer. My favorite is some sort of Community model because I love bringing people together to inspire each other about genealogy and teach beginners ways to get started that fit their interest and lifestyles. I’m only a little stuck about how to develop a business around that without recreating what FamilySearch and Ancestry already do, it seems uninteresting to me to simply overlap with them.