[Hidden-tech] Starting my own small Business Website

[Peter S]

Hello all,

I want to thank everyone for your insights.  I'll try to follow up 
individually today.

Thanks again!

~Peter


On 12/20/21 3:26 PM, Don Lesser wrote:
> This is a job for an expert. The SBA offers free business consulting 
> for these types of questions. Chambers of Commerce should be able to 
> get you to the schedule for an SBA advisor. You don’t have to be a 
> chamber member. The MSBDC  in Springfield offers a lot of good info 
> for free. I’d go to them as a start.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Dec 20, 2021, at 2:20 PM, Shel Horowitz via Hidden-discuss 
>> <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Hi, Peter,
>>
>> On the tax side, you should consult with an expert. Buying a 
>> half-hour of time may be a really good investment. My understanding 
>> as a non-expert is that to qualify as a business and take the 
>> deductions, you need to show a profit three years out of five. I am 
>> not in that field and am not soliciting that business. (I'm a 
>> marketer, and would be happy to explore with you whether there might 
>> be commercial applications for your dashboard--I think there might be.
>> )
>> ᐧ
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 9:58 AM Peter S via Hidden-discuss 
>> <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
>>
>>     Hello Hidden Techers,
>>
>>     I want to apologize up front for what is a serious 'newbie'
>>     question.. but I was hoping to draw from your collective wisdom,
>>     if possible.
>>
>>     I've built a small website that essentially aggregates all of my
>>     home utility data (from the various utility websites) into one
>>     dashboard.  It's been a personal project of mine for the past few
>>     years, written in Django, that I've essentially developed/hosted
>>     on my home Linux server.  Its written to be scalable, so that it
>>     works for any US State/City, assuming the web crawlers were
>>     written for the utility web sites.  I see this as a hobby venture
>>     (that could grow to be more).
>>
>>     I'd like to go live with it, and make it available to some of my
>>     friends/family, if they were interested in using it.
>>
>>     While I've been buttoning up things from a security perspective,
>>     I've also been researching the associated costs of actually
>>     running a website.
>>
>>     Specifically:
>>
>>      1. Purchasing/Sustaining a domain name via Namecheap
>>      2. Web hosting (maybe multiple nodes... one for main Django app,
>>         one for Redis Queue workers, one for Splash Javascript
>>         rendering support) via Digital Ocean, Heroku, or AWS.
>>      3. Email Hosting..
>>      4. (Possibly) SSL Certificate purchase
>>      5. More?
>>
>>     I haven't yet decided on which hosting services etc to use
>>     (multiple topics for other conversations).  My assumption is that
>>     in the short (and most likely long term) this won't turn a
>>     profit, and would just be a small money hole.
>>
>>     I thought it might make sense to at least capture these costs
>>     under some sort of 'small business' umbrella.  My naive hope is
>>     that maybe it would have positive tax implications.
>>
>>     I've never started a business of any kind before.
>>
>>     So.. what do I need to do?  I need to get an EIN from the IRS. 
>>     I've heard an LLC may be more than I need. What would be your
>>     suggested approach?
>>
>>     Thanks in advance for your time and wisdom (and patience for my
>>     newbie question),
>>
>>     ~Peter
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> Shel Horowitz - "The Transformpreneur"
>> ________________________________________________
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