On Becoming a Respectable Businessman

21 04 2009

I am scared.

I’ve started a small business. I am now officially self-employed, which means I have to wade through a self-assessment tax form in 11 months. Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs recognises my business as being called A.Sine(9) Software, which will cause no end of problems trying to describe how to spell it over the phone.

Sadly it also means that 27% of my earnings are sliced off the top. The interesting part is that in trying to set up a business account with the Bank of Scotland I have to formulate a business plan, project my cashflow over the next year and have a business manager come and view my workplace (which is where I’m sat right now with a cat on my knee and a metric ton of comics, fiction and reference manuals on the shelves behind me). All this is becoming terribly real, and very confusing, but if you’re thinking of striking out on your own it’s not so daunting and I’m starting to feel quite proud of my little cottage php industry. I can recommend visiting the HMRC’s new business pages and their excellent helpline: 0845 915 4515 for those kicking off a side job.

Now I’m off to finish that site I’ve been working on for 2 months -_0

Tags: business, coding, scary

8 Comments to On Becoming a Respectable Businessman

1. 

   Wow, scary. Just don’t crazy behind on the paperwork like my Dad does… Caused some epic arguments, that.

   I understand if you don’t want to post details here, but I’m curious about what your projected year one cash flow is, and also the size of the projects you’ve taken on.

   Reply – Quote
mbooth on April 24th, 2009
2. 

   Also, must watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyYaPWasos

   Reply – Quote
mbooth on April 24th, 2009
3. 

   In answer to your questions Mr. Booth at the minute it’s just a small job making shopping carts for websites. Depending on complexity I’m looking at between £200 and £400 per site, which includes support. I have no idea how this scales up, but I’m working with a guy who is building the sites whilst I provide the code.
   Costs are obviously my time (which is worth next to nothing) and paying for a website when I get a chance to build one. Other incident costs would come in to play with bigger projects, like travel and increased amount of time in requirements capture and testing.
   Depending on how I feel about the work I may scale up and start advertising but it’s all art of the possible. The mindset is give it a try and see how it works out.

   P.s. Excellent use of the pedeo bear. Fun fact: I have the original Billy Joel song on ’45
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP0APvTSMMw

   Reply – Quote
Neil on April 24th, 2009
4. 

   Cool. With a bit of luck, you’ll be able to re-use a lot of the code from job to job so you can spend most of your time sat on your arse and twiddling your thumbs.

   At least, that’s my philosophy: Laziness driven software engineering, or “I could automate the crap out of that…”

   How does the order book look? Got more jobs planned after the current one?

   Reply – Quote
mbooth on April 26th, 2009
5. 

   Also, saw this on El Reg today:
   http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

   Apparently it was reasonably difficult to get that petition past the site moderators. Spread the word, yo.

   Reply – Quote
mbooth on April 26th, 2009
6. 

   Signed that so fast it’s scary!
   For them as wants to know, here’s the article:
   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/24/brown_epetition/

   Reply – Quote
Neil on April 26th, 2009
7. 

   Lol, left that unsigned I’m afraid. Ok, so I don’t really like the guy, but who would take over if he went??

   Reply – Quote
Ado on April 26th, 2009
8. 

   Originally Posted By AdoLol, left that unsigned I’m afraid. Ok, so I don’t really like the guy, but who would take over if he went??

   I was thinking that maybe we could, y’know, actually *vote* for the next one. ;-)

   Reply – Quote
mbooth on April 27th, 2009

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