Has anyone started a small business IT or non IT related?

N2IT

I've been having conversations with my parents and some other potential partners about starting a small business. This particular one is non IT related.

I was wondering what some of the challenges you faced? Was the business plan/pro forma challenging to create? How did you come up with your marketing, what tools did you leverage? What services did you hire to assist you in this venture? Did you form the company as an LLC or another business entity?

I'm just wondering from a high level how did it go?

TLeTourneau

I've done both sole proprietor and corporation. I had a coffee shop that was a sole proprietor operation and I have a corporation that I do my consulting, web hosting and a few other ventures through. For each I used Business Plan Pro to setup the business plans, it made it much easier. For the coffee shop the marketing was done through local ads in print, radio and TV after consulting with a marketing company on initial ideas. The corporation marketing varies depending on the subsidiary company, the IT consulting is word of mouth and the others are web based businesses so it's primarily Google Ad-words. As far as whether to go sole proprietor, LLC or other I always recommend LLC or corp over sole proprietor for a few reasons, not the least of which is the liability shield. Although it's possible to "pierce the veil" for the liability shield it's a nice thing to have. Between LLC and corp it depends on how you want to do the taxes. Insurances can also be slightly different between sole proprietorships and LLC/corps.