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    Saturday, January 27, 2018

    AMA: Ask independent Reddit-wise accountants about the biggest US tax changes in 30 years and how it might change your business small business

    AMA: Ask independent Reddit-wise accountants about the biggest US tax changes in 30 years and how it might change your business small business


    AMA: Ask independent Reddit-wise accountants about the biggest US tax changes in 30 years and how it might change your business

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 09:11 AM PST

    ANSWERS START AT 1:00 Eastern and will continue over the weekend. Expect answers to come a bit slower after the first few hours

    In the US? Your taxes changed last month. What you're going to pay probably changed and maybe how you should do things changed. What your employees pay changed. If you run your business responsibly and don't like wasting money it's probably time to talk to your accountant.

    The tax experts below can answer questions about the changes and maybe help you understand what's going on. They can't tell you what to do but they might be able to tell you what to ask.


    It's time to ask anything about taxes

    Our experts include:

    /u/mjsmith223 - A CPA with over 15 years experience and owner of his own firm, he will be responding after work hours as the tax crunch has apparently already begun to hit.

    /u/DarkHorseCPA - CPA at DarkHorse CPAs San Diego, he's already started a podcast discussing the changes called "Taxes & Beer."

    /u/upallday - Owner of CWI Accounting and an Enrolled Agent in California with over 10 years of experience and hundreds of business small business clients.

    /u/Mr_CPA - Managing member and CPA, Eliseo CPA, PLLC, licensed agent in North Carolina.

    /u/furushotakeru - Owner of his own firm with over 15 years of experience helping businesses with tax issues as a Certified Tax Coach, Enrolled Agent in California.

    /u/PickMeMrKotter - Jason Ackerman, Supervisor at Wagner, Ferber, Fine & Ackerman, PLLC a firm with over 70 years of experience in tax and accounting

    /u/sappy02 - Six year Redditor and affiliated with an app-based tax prep company. (verification pending)

    /u/TaxTalkinGuy - Stewart Patton, A US Tax attorney with U.S. Tax Services in Belize, he'll be dropping by after a few hours and is especially able to help with international questions


    Guidelines:

    • Nothing in the thread should be considered tax advice for your business. This will be an informal discussion of tax changes and not specific to any company. Talk to your own tax expert. Nothing said here creates any client relationship with you or is privileged in any way. While the mods have informally verified that the accountants listed represent the companies listed we have no way to verify their skill levels, certifications or other professional information or that they are licensed to practice in your location.

    • Planned schedule: Starting Friday January 26th at 1pm Eastern and ending sometime this weekend.

    submitted by /u/BigSlowTarget
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    Business Email — Best of 2018

    Posted: 27 Jan 2018 02:03 AM PST

    Greetings Folks,

    With zoho no longer offering free business mail, i was wondering what are you guys using and would recommend to obtain business email?

    Please share — Cost, Ease of usage, Reliability and other extra function.

    TQ

    submitted by /u/qwerstory
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    How to Protect Business Idea Without a Patent

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 07:53 PM PST

    What % of receivables is acceptable from one single customer?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 06:21 AM PST

    So my job is management of an entire produce distribution center. Some customers come and go, while we always maintain a solid top 5-10.

    These customers are out on 30-45 day terms with 6 figure open balances. In the past, a single top 10 company going bankrupt would hurt us, but not cripple us.

    I've noticed my #1 and #2 customers climbing in total volume over the last few years, and taking up a large portion of my receivables. My owners worry about them (customers) going under, or failing to pay one day. I agree, it'd be devastating and we'd be in scramble mode trying to recover.

    I've tried scouting the internet, but haven't found anything concrete on risk or general rules of thumb when it comes to receivables allocation.

    What chunk of receivables is too much? 25%? 33%? 50%? Right now my #1 and #2 customers account for 30% of total business. I'm mostly concerned with #2 at 10% alone. My top customer is the industry leader, while my #2 came out of nowhere in the last 2-3 years.

    submitted by /u/Lounase
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    Brick and mortar shops: where do you find products for your store?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 07:04 PM PST

    Hello! I have a small business that I run online. I would love to expand and wholesale my product to different brick and mortar gift shops. Store owners - what is the best way to get my product in front of you?

    submitted by /u/italianpizzaguy
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    How do you do ask/automate referrals for your business?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 05:07 PM PST

    I've been trying to find a way to automate our referral system and would love to see if someone else is doing this. I've been thinking of creating a simple survey and embed it into a Mailchimp email to be sent 40 days after a client gets added to our lists, from then we would ask customer if they give us permission to post it online on our website. Are there any systems out there that would automate this? any tips would be appreciated. If it helps we are a service business and usually get 10-30 clients per month so not a lot of volume. TIA.

    submitted by /u/soontobecpa
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    Leaving employer to start competing small business. Resign with a vague statement or be upfront?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 05:02 PM PST

    Turning in my letter next week. Been in this industry forever so I'm going into business doing what I know, which makes me a future competitor. Should I be upfront with my plans? Been working here a darn long time and it just feels wrong to do that, but I also want to avoid trouble. What's your experience in doing this?

    submitted by /u/Koflako
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    Wife and I just started an LLC. Whats the best way to deal with daily expenses and taxes?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 08:40 AM PST

    We just started a sales/marketing consulting LLC (in Colorado if that matters.) We will be getting 100% of our household income from here. How would I go about taking money from these accounts for rent, groceries, entertainment, etc to not get double taxed on them (from the LLC and personal side?) Thanks!!

    submitted by /u/coleman25
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    SIC / NAICS codes for Marijuana industry

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 04:03 PM PST

    What are viable SIC & NAICS Codes for the Marijuana Industry, specifically manufacturing/extracting oils. I've been looking for a while and can't find exactly what I need. Also how scrutinized are these when applying for certain permits?

    submitted by /u/lucious4202
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    What licenses and permits are required in order to sell and get our self-produced food into retail stores?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 02:52 PM PST

    Hello everyone,

    I have sold my own homemade sausages to my friends and neighborhood for a while. After trying, they gave me very positive feedback and suggest me to run a small business to spread it out and sell the sausages with a brand legally. I got my food manager certificate, registered an LLC and talked with a local commercial kitchen to rent their place producing sausage. My concern is what licenses and permits are required to sell my products in markets and retail stores? I live in Virginia. Thank you.

    submitted by /u/piabc
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    A question about directors across multiple limited companies.

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 01:22 PM PST

    Hi

    So I have a small business here in the UK and I have a question. 2 of the other directors of my company are directors of another company which is struggling and I'm concerned might be about to fold.

    What I'm wondering is if that company does fold are their any legal implications of what could happen to my business, such as trying to pay debtors using assets from my business due to the shared directors?

    I'm going to speak to an accountant ASAP but wanted to ask here to hopefully get some peace of mind.

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/pixelatedasch
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    can you recommend something to take an ean number and find product images?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:59 PM PST

    I could code something myself, but I'm lazy and not going to do it if it already exists! Preferably php code would be best, but I'm flexible as long as it's opensource

    submitted by /u/whingeypomme
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    Is a resale certificate necessary to begin designing and selling business cards to my clients?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:32 PM PST

    So I own an advertising agency in Illinois that specializing in radio advertising and web design, but I would like to start designing and selling business cards for my clients as well. I currently do not provide any "tangible" advertising products so I don't pay any sales tax, but am interested in designing and selling business cards.

    Since businesses cards are "tangible", do I need to fill out a resale certificate? Or can I simply just design the business cards, purchase them, and sell them at a markup as part of my service? I don't plan to invoice my clients for business cards, but include them in my service in an addition to the service that I already provide.

    Thanks.

    submitted by /u/Voodoo_808
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    Question about partner contribution on written agreement.

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 12:28 PM PST

    We're creating a written agreement so that we can get a bank account opened and there is a part on it that its asking what is it that each partner is contributing and how what is the value of it. We're a company that is going to offer janitorial services but as of now the only thing we're contributing is our 2 years each of experience is this field of work. Is it weird if that is our only contribution and how do we put a $ value on that? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated it.

    submitted by /u/Kelthus
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    Looking for a Partner - Links / Details Below

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:59 AM PST

    I've posted on here before which I found helpful. Looking for advice or a partner that can help w/ marketing and business development for a cell phone buyback and distribution [website](www.cashyourphones.com) that has been on park for almost 2 years.

    Details:

    The site went live in June 2015 and was run part-time. Traffic was primarily generated via google paid marketing. The average conversion rate was 4.0% with a bounce rate between (27%-31%). The amount spent per conversion was around $5 which did quite well. The database has 900+ existing customers. The expenses consist of a minimal daily marketing budget, hosting, and shipping supplies.

    I feel bad that it's been on the back-burner due to other priorities. I'm open to an equity partner that can help take the pressure off.

    The goal is to create an infrastructure around buying/selling cell phones in bulk (distribution).

    Open to suggestions. Feel free to let me know if you, or someone you know, may be a good fit.

    Link: [www.CashYourPhones.com](www.cashyourphones.com)

    submitted by /u/CellConnect
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    For those who have used sites like Thumbtack / Lead Generators?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:29 AM PST

    What did you like or dislike about it?

    I'm currently working at a start-up that is trying to compete against sites like Thumbtack / Fiverr.

    General cons I've seen against sites like this are

    • Poor quality of leads

    • Cost of paying to put in a bid for an order

    We are really trying to make something that would be the future of acquiring services. We want the usability of sites like Craigslist and Thumbtack but without the opportunity for scams and for a more trusted and secure connection between people who need something done to people who can get that thing done.

    submitted by /u/ThatBoiMalik
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    What dangers to watch out for when rebranding a business?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 11:04 AM PST

    In 2016 I launched an online retail business. It's been going okay, just a touch slow and I know it's because I diluted it by pulling in too many different products and just lacking focus. So I'm actively fixing my product lines right now, and am strongly thinking of fixing my store name and branding to also reflect the better focus.

    I know that I risk losing the little bit of brand recognition that I've built up in two years, but I think I can mitigate that with a marketing transition plan. (For example, have "FocusShop, formerly VagueShop" wherever the name shows up for a while.) What are the other pitfalls or risks that I need to consider as I go through this process?

    submitted by /u/JcWoman
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    Losing $20,000 with a Bootstrapped SaaS

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 10:58 AM PST

    Hey everyone! I am Rich Clominson, co-founder of Failory, a website where we weekly interview failed startups. Today is a big day as we have just published an interview with Rohit Nallapeta, the owner of Eloquis, a SaaS that invested $20,000 and couldn't carry out a single sell. The problem? Rohit arrived too early to the party and approached the wrong people.

     

    If you have any questions, I will happily answer them below ;)


    Hi Rohit! What's your background, and what are you currently working on?

    I am a builder by heart, while I continue to consult and build things. I started out as a programmer, evolved into an analyst, e-commerce manager, engineering manager, and product builder. I am currently working on a product idea called Market Canvas - think ProductHunt for marketing software. A discovery engine that helps in finding the right and new marketing tool easy for a marketer.

     

    What was Eloquis about? How did you build it?

    Eloquis was all about bringing personalization to mobile apps. What I saw was that the web evolved from being hello user to "Hello Bob, it's great to meet you on a wonderful December day" - whereas the mobile app was the same except for the social app e.g. FB, Twitter, 4Square etc. The rest of the apps treated the user very transactionally. We thought a way to remedy that was to offer a personalization platform and humanize the apps.

     

    Which marketing strategies did you use to grow Eloquis?

    Unfortunately, we didn't have a strong marketing strategy. Our strategy was to get a set of small user groups in the mobile dev world to adapt our product. Once we did that, we started with email outreach and LinkedIn outreach which had very less impact.

     

    Which were the causes of Eloquis failure?

    We spoke to a few interested parties initially and the feedback we received were:

    • Personalization was not an immediate need as of that day in the app world. We failed to realize that problem and somehow assumed the market would see the value in the product.

    • We approached the wrong end or segment of the market. A mobile dev house is the last mile for an app that's being developed, so personalization software sale targeted towards them is not a great idea.

    • We were yet another software in the already crowded mobile software field. There were no case studies or a quantifiable way to articulate our value proposition except for drawing parallels to the web. This failed to capture the interest of any prospective customers.

    • We were early to the game of personalization of apps and our marketing strategy and approach was wrong.

    • Our brand name was a disaster and most of the traffic that we got, for free, was looking for an alternate name called "Eliquis" a drug from Bayer. There was no way we would win the SEO game. We had no SEO strategy or any other ecosystem strategy to piggyback our marketing on.

    • We were early and spent our energy on different things rather than focusing on building a case for ourselves and personalization needed in apps. We failed to educate the market.

     

    Which were your investments? Did you achieve some revenue? Did you lose any money?

    Our investments include:

    • Domain name ~ a costly one to start with and a disaster at the same time
    • Building design and HTML for web front admin console
    • Marketing and outreach programs

    We lost about 20,000$ and a countless number of productive hours. We achieved no revenue.

     

    If you had to start over, what would you do differently?

    A few things:

    • We would validate the idea at the conceptual level by creating a few ad campaigns and digital marketing campaigns to gauge user interest and need. We'd interview the target or potential customer segments and try to understand the problem and not assume a need.

    • I would definitely not put a lot of emphasis on domain name or invest a lot of money without researching the potential of the name.

    • I would build the product in its entirety as an API, SDK rather than a service and launch it toward the developer network e.g. like Twilio only focused towards personalization.

    • I would find an ecosystem to market to as it's hard to acquire customers directly. I would also educate, engage and involve myself in the world that my initial customer segment lives in.

    • I would create a much better customer acquisition strategy either via personal recruitment or ecosystem mining. I definitely would start with a SEO strategy and not mess up on the brand name as I did before.

     

    What did you learn? 🗂

    I will use some expressions to summarize my learnings

    • Don't put the cart before the horse
    • Don't assume a market need, validate it.

    PRO Tip: Mechanical Turk your business solution just to ensure you're not drinking your own Kool-Aid

    • Come up with a solid marketing strategy, no matter how great you think the product is going to be

     

    Apart from failures, what are other sources for learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?

    I believe that we're all inundated with quite a lot of learning/how-to articles than we care to read or manage to read. However, being selective and choosing your learning sources is something that I actively do now. My key goal is to learn from anything I read and listen.

     

    Here are a few blogs that I think are amazing:

    • Farnam Street: A blog dedicated to learning and reading

    • AVC: For a great VC perspective on various subjects

    • FirstRound Blog: Great entrepreneurship stories and life lessons for founders running companies

    • Ben Evans: A great site for broad industry trends

    And some podcasts:

    • a16z: Hands down the most educational podcast on topics relating to technology, startup, hiring, tech culture and leadership

    • Masters of Scale: Great lessons in scaling and company building

    • 99% Invisible

    • HBR Ideacast

    • Economist

     

    Which entrepreneur book would you recommend?

    Here are some books that had an impact on me and some that are on my to-read list:

     

    Read & Impactful:

    • Zero to one - Peter Thiel: Talks about the sins of competition and teaches business philosophy of differentiation, speed, and thinking of marketing strategy

    • The Art of Strategy - A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business & Life: Great lessons in thinking and game theory and importance of game theory in decision making

    • The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable: Achieve deep thinking and not arrive to simplistic explanation.

    • Unscalable - Charlie Guo: On same great stories of how successful businesses were initially built with very rudimentary and non-scalable techniques.

    • The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant: A good history of philosophy and origin of western rational thought

    • The Innovators - Walter Isaacson: Quick innovation history that covers Silicon Valley greats

    • Almost Perfect -W.E. Pete Peterson: A history of Wordperfect, computer applications history

    To-Read Books:

    • Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss

    • Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

    • Many more...

     

    Original interview posted at https://failory.com/interview/eloquis

    submitted by /u/richclominson
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    What is an ideal proof of concept that a non-technical person can quickly build to validate an app business idea?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 10:27 AM PST

    Hi everyone! I am non-technical (by non-technical I mean no coding skills) who has an idea for an app business. It's like Tinder mixed with Meet-up for people who are looking to do activities with people (strangers). I am currently in the idea validation phase.

    I have run a few facebook campaigns using a landing page and have shared mockups with family and friends for their feedback. Feedback has been positive. I'ts hard to get a sense as to whether people would actually use the app (since I am not selling a product, I can't get them to pre-purchase).

    Before moving forward with the project and recruiting a technical founder, I would like to validate the idea further to increase the likelihood that I am solving a real problem that people want solved. I would like to build a working proof of concept to see if early adopters would be attracted to the project and to receive feedback on critical features.

    My thought process is that if I can validate the idea and show early traction, then I will be in a better position to recruit a high quality technical founder. For a non-technical person, I thought the following proof of concepts might work:

    A low fidelity app built on a no-code app builder like Bubble, Goodbarber, Shoutem, Appery.io, etc. An MVP app in which the development is outsourced (freelancer, overseas dev shop) A simple web app using a pre-built Wordpress theme

    Some basic issues include:

    At first glance, with a no-code app builder, i'm not sure I can build a "good enough" app to receive meaningful user feedback on the idea or core features.

    To develop an MVP app is expensive (online i've seen ranges of $5,000 to $15,000) and I can't successfully project manage the app development given my lack of technical expertise.

    A simple web app that I construct may not provide an accurate user experience that I envision to be critical to my app's success.

    What method should I pursue next as a proof of concept to further test the idea?

    submitted by /u/boredgodolife
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    Joining dad's logistics business, just completed Undergrad (Finance). Afraid I won't be able to add value.

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 10:08 AM PST

    I'll be joining my dad's logistics business this summer. My dad did not go to college, and still has set up a fairly successful business assuming he came from nothing. Now he wants me to join, and I'm basically afraid I won't be half as good as him, despite being lucky enough (by my parents grace) to have had such a good education. Basically, what if I can't add value to the business and have nothing to show for all these years of education that my parents worked so hard to provide for me? Any tips?

    TL;DR- Joining dad's business, worried I won't add anything to it, tips please? Thank you!

    submitted by /u/thewatchfulredditor
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    Asking strangers to invest in your business start-up? How do you protect your idea?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 09:40 AM PST

    I'd rather not have immediate family invest in my business plan. I'd rather it be maybe an acquaintance so if by some reason it fails miserably I'm not the black sheep at Christmas. (sarcasm of course.) I've even considered asking strangers, but I'm also afraid of them taking my idea and starting it because they have deep pockets.

    Can you tell me your experiences?

    submitted by /u/SharkintheSalsa
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    Feedback on New Backpack Ecommerce Store Welcome! :-)

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 09:37 AM PST

    I am in the first week of launch for my new backpack store and am testing the marketplace. With only 6 products online now, I am in discussions with manufacturers about a further 68 products but would love to have feedback from potential users to fine tune the product selection and pricing. Products are aimed at daily commuters / freelance travelers and nomads.

    Feel free to look through the store and provide any feedback or specifically comment on any of the following:

    Do you feel the products are appropriately priced? Are you a commuter/traveler who travels with their laptop? DO you consider these products stylish and functional?

    Any feedback welcome! Thanks a million!

    www.nomada-gear.com

    submitted by /u/supertramping13
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    Union Gas - Underestimating Usage

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 08:29 AM PST

    Hi, I have had my tenant take over the Union Gas account for the property. Now the issue is that Union Gas has send me a "catch up" bill. Apparently they realized they were under estimating the usage and now want to charge me more for the past 4 months. It is significantly higher and I am surprised. I called them up but the most they can do is knock off the late penalty for Feb. My question is that are they even allowed to go back 4 months to do this?

    submitted by /u/seacret90
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    1-5 Employee service companies. What do you want to learn about business?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 08:12 AM PST

    For the people running very small service companies (1-5 employees total). Very small service companies often provide an excellent quality of service but it is sometimes difficult to juggle all of the responsibility that may be delegated in larger companies.

    What are some of the problems you have in your business that you would like to learn how to handle? What topics might you like to learn about that apply to very small companies but may not be relevant to larger companies?

    submitted by /u/DavidO1180
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    How to package and sell Homemade Soda?

    Posted: 26 Jan 2018 07:20 AM PST

    So, I've been thinking about fundraising ideas for my organization in university. I wanted to try and sell soda, but I'm not sure how I can make a profit out of it. In the past, I've made soda by storing it in 16oz self sealing bottles. These bottles, though, cost way too much to keep buying them in bulk. So my question is, how would I go about packaging and selling the soda? Would I have to buy plastic bottles or cans? If so, where would I purchase them and would they keep the soda sealed?

    **This is also a hypothetical, I'm in the process of getting permission to sell products on campus. Still it would be nice to know for future reference.

    submitted by /u/Spyest
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