vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
There are a few different ways to organize this, but mostly I think you need to talk to a lawyer.  The 50/50 split thing should be in writing along with a bunch of other issues. You could have one of you doing a sole proprietorship where the other person is a contractor that receives half of all revenues/profits.  The person that owns the sole proprietorship may be entitled to deduct certain costs of running the entity.  The other person would then be 1099'd his share of revenues. You could set up a partnership, again legal paperwork is necessary. You could also setup an S-Corp, where each of you is a 50% owner. You could also setup an LLC that is organized as any of the above.  I would only do this if you can self fund some additional tax preparation costs.  Figure about $600/year at a minimum.   There are a lot of options with a sole proprietorship being the easiest.  Your first step on the new venture would be to apply for an EIN (free), and then opening a business bank account. Good luck.
"&gt; * How did you get started?  I realized there's little to no overhead for a service-based business, so I thought up a name and concept and spent a few hundred on licensing with the state.  &gt; * What kind of services do you offer?  All the simple shit an average person can't do.  OS upgrade, RAM upgrades, home entertainment installation and troubleshooting, purchase consulting, HIPAA compliance, and whatever else works for both me and my customer.  &gt; * Do you follow an ""Hourly Rate"" or ""Flat Rate"" payment system?  Depends on the job, but usually hourly.  My standard rate is $30 an hour, if you were wondering.  I could charge more, but my rate is already flexible, so I don't really care to push away potential client experiences with a high price tag.  &gt; * What services make you the most income?  The easy stuff.  Upgrading a businesses machines.  I get paid $30 an hour to reddit and click buttons, not because the business can't, but because they don't want to.  &gt; * What physical things would you recommend I acquire prior to getting started?  Go on ifixit.com.  Buy every unique tool they have.  I wish I was kidding.  &gt; * How long until you were able to ""make a living"" from your business?  I still don't because I'm in school.  In theory, if I just doubled my hours per week, I'd be able to make more than enough to support myself for about four or less work days a week.  &gt; * What would you do differently if you were to start again from scratch?  Not name the business after myself...  &gt; * Any other tips / words of wisdom on how to make this work?  Consultants only thrive on word of mouth.  It's better to lose money supporting a client than losing their trust.  Their recommendations mean EVERYTHING.  Widespread dvertising is a good way to get a ton of one-time customers who don't respect your services or your rate."
Quite a bit as in, $100K+? If you're a sole operator, not sure what constitutes a real likelihood that a risk of liability will materialize, and in need of a lot of up front financing, I am genuinely concerned that you're going to a lay a giant egg on this one. What is it your business is going to be doing? I don't really want to give a free consultation, but I'm worried you're either misunderstanding something or about to make a mistake, and I don't want to see that happen.
Cheapest is one thing. You can absolutely shop in the market and find the lowest possible price. I can think of three places to shop, each with an up and downside. I would think that what you really mean is the best price for the service. Just like shopping for a car you have to decide what you need vs what is nice to have. Decide what features you need. Do you need long distance? Do you need caller id? Do you need to call technophobic friends and family? Find out what you have available to you through associations. Often schools, work or a club you belong to have deals for service discounts. Look at your insurance plan or AAA membership for the crazy discounts. Decide what kinds of service will meet your needs. Buy the cheapest service. DO NOT ENTER A CONTRACT. Even if the price is slightly lower. At least not at first. If you try out your service and love it, enter the contract if and only if the total price measured over length of the contract is less. With cell phones especially, it is absolutely possible to save money buying month to month vs a 2 year contract. Even when you buy equipment for full price up front. Ask for the bare minimum service from your local phone company. Because phone companies are often regulated monopolies, they might have a bare minimum level of service they are required to offer by the municipality. They probably don't advertise it or push it, but it might exist if you call and ask. You basically get a dial tone. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/local-local-toll-and-long-distance-calling Price is dictated by a government board, so you don't have to worry about shopping for deals Not the cheapest possible solution This is popular plan the youth oriented market, but more and more people of all demographics are using their cellphones only. There are downsides (911, etc) and shopping for the best cell phone plan can be a full time job, but it does offer a way to save money by simply not having home phone service.
How many key members are there? How much is their contribution worth? At what point will you be profitable? Next is to look at risks. You haven't done this before, that's huge - I'm assuming simply because you asked this question. Another is competitors - hopefully they already exist because opening a new market is incredibly hard and expensive; on the flip side, hopefully there aren't that many because entering a crowded market is equally hard and expensive. Note: each are possible, but take radically different approaches and sums of money - and $200k isn't going to cut it no matter what it is you are selling. That said, competition should be able to at least point you in the direction of a price point and estimate for how long sales take. If any are publicly traded then you have additional info to help you set a valuation. Are there any potential regulatory or legal issues? What happens if a key member leaves, dies or is otherwise no longer available? Insurance only helps so much if the one guy that knows everything literally gets run over. God help you if this person likes to go skydiving. I bring risks up because you will have to surmount them during this negotiation. For example, asking for $200k with zero hard assets, while trying to sell software to government agencies assuming a 3 week sales cycle will have you laughed at for naivety. Whereas asking for $10m in the same situation, with a team that has governmental sales experience would likely work. Another big question is exit strategy: do you intend to IPO or sell to a competitor or a business in a related category? If selling, do you have evidence that the target company actually buys others, and if so, how did those deals work out? What did they look for in order to buy? Exit strategy is HUGE to a VC and they will want to make several multiples of their money back in a relatively short amount of time. Can you realistically support that for how much you are asking for? If not then going through an Angel group would be better. They have similar questions, but very different expectations. The main thing is that no one knows what your business is worth because it is 100% unproven after 2 years and is therefore a huge financial risk.
I was in your situation a few years ago and I discovered something that worked perfectly for me - a local health insurance broker. I met with her, discussed my needs, reviewed the options with her, then acted. She received a commission from the insurer, so it cost me nothing. I would certainly follow a similar approach again.
1) Have a discussion, including would they be willing to share their financials to help craft a proposal 2) Fire up Excel (or similar) and build a financial plan. What would 6 days a week potentially look like financially? Is there a snack bar or similar upside revenue op? Is there enough money to interest the owners and you? Run the plan by a disinterested third party (local banker or business manager might make sense) to challenge your assumptions. 3) Make a proposal only if the numbers make sense.
If you do go the online route (there's TONS of information out there on how to launch an e-store) make sure you're aware of the caveats. Amazon sellers for example can be shafted pretty hard on returns, as policy generally dictates that you eat the costs. If you don't have a lot of capital this could be back-breaking.   Don't let that discourage you, though! You could make a decent business essentially just setting up an online storefront and drop shipping items from elsewhere, which could fund the capital needed to open a brick and mortar shop.  To answer your question directly, what everyone else has said is definitely important and correct but don't ignore the smaller things like the fact that you could have a page that presents the items better and makes things look more appealing/luxurious, and the fact that not everyone punches every item they're considering buying into Google to compare. Decent marketing can go a long way (depending on what you're selling, at least)
Network with school nurses, education, health care practitioners, hospitals, etc. Offer them discounts and referrals. Even local gyms. Target the right demographics interested in your product. You may have to physically go talk to these people too. Maybe bring some samples. Go to them until they come to you.
The other commenters have a point.  You're going to have a hard time succeeding without the right structure at work.  That said, you can look into sales methodologies like MEDDIC.  These methods are commonly deployed at B2B companies which it sounds like you are.
As JoeTaxpayer has mentioned, please consult a lawyer and CA.  In general you would have to pay tax on the profit you make, in the example on this 10% you make less of any expenses to run the business. depending on how you are incorporating the business, there would be an element of service tax apart from corporate tax or income tax.
Yes!  This has bothered me for years because it's really obvious on the level of small businesses.  Any material/service cost goes up- ugh fine I guess we have to pay to stay in business.....          Can't find anyone to break their backs for $9/hr?  They'll do literally anything rather than pay more.  They will fuck up their business for years trying to find a way to pay the same labor costs.
Sorry if I came of harsh, I've spent the last few years starting small businesses, and that's the most consistent message I've come across. Ideas don't get bought.   I know your research seems valuable to you, but these companies likely pay $3-10-50k for massive research studies that come in the form of custom written books. Your work has to be unique, thorough, and well presented on a level that can compare to be valuable to them. It would be far easier to sell them an existing client base, a phenomenal team, or better yet, defensible IP.
Scalability is the key determinate - if it doesn't scale easily then chances are the big bucks will elude you. To the extent that unless your entrepreneurial idea doesn't have scalability built into the business model, you should probably think again.  Straight contracting/manpower sub is always limited and problematic - whereas encapsulating the IP and developing the *system* of applying that IS scalable.
"As a self-employed Handyman I can tell you this. Any work that is done, be it professional, part-time, hobby or whatever else, has to answer to two primary criteria. As you asked, it has to be worthwhile in financial terms and more importantly in personal terms. In the long term, charging low rates will demoralize her. Not worth it. Someone once said; ""I have no quarrel with he who charges cheaply, because who better then he knows the value of his services""? Obviously one has to remain reasonable. Then there is an ambush factor in working for yourself. I call it syphoning losses since they are extremely difficult to calculate as noted above here already. In the first place they are extremely difficult to detect anyway. Micro-management will not tell you the losses, you can only do it at the end of a period on a balance sheet. Then you have to calculate a fair price in terms of lessons given and monies received. The trick is to gain a fair assessment of worth to her without her needing to go into the books, just as a simple gut feel. She needs to really feel good about it to maintain motivation for the future. Otherwise, I did it, it does not work. The other consideration is that when money changes hands it places a benchmark on the tuition and the relationship. One. It locks her into delivering professional work as she already is one. Two. The students will be locked into giving fair and excellent commitment in being taught. A simple calculation goes like this; Use the time span of a month as it is easier to break down available time per week. Also remember that there will perforce be extra hours spent in consultation with parents, this is a syphoning cost, it has be calculated. Difficult at the start, but keep track of it. One other thing. I do not give discounts of extend favours, but I keep my prices reasonable. [[I was told I am some 25% more expensive than the latest quotes, but I kept on getting work with a high execution to quotation rate.]] Floating prices are impossible to track, manage and justify, people talk to each other, whether you like it or not.
The vendor needs to do this using apportionment, according to the VAT rules for mixed supplies: If you make mixed supplies and the individual supplies are not liable to VAT   at the same rate then you need to work out the tax value of   each supply in order to calculate how much tax is due. If the tax   value is based on the total price you charge (see paragraph 7.3) you   do this by splitting that price between the supplies. This is called   an apportionment ... There is no special method of apportionment ... However, your calculations must be fair and you must be able to justify them. It is usually best to use one of the methods shown in section 32. The section 32 referred to really relates to apportioning use between business and non-business purposes, but it implies that splitting up the total price in proportion to the original prices would probably be fair. So in your example the vendor might split the £5 discount equally between the spoon and the carrycot as they had the same gross cost, and pay VAT as if each had cost £7.50 gross. The vendor could also do it in proportion to their net (pre-VAT) prices and thus apportion a bit more of the discount to the carrycot than the spoon, but as this would lead to them paying slightly more tax overall they probably wouldn't choose to. However, none of this is likely to be too relevant to a consumer, since in the UK prices must be presented as the gross (VAT-inclusive) amounts and so the discounts will also apply to those amounts. It will of course affect how much of the purchase price the vendor ends up paying on to the government and thus might indirectly affect what discounts the vendor is willing to offer.
First, determine the workload he will expect. Will you have to quit your other work, either for time or for competition? How much of your current business will be subsumed into his business, if any? Make sure to understand what he wants from you. If you make an agreement, set it in writing and set some clear expectations about what will happen to your business (e.g. it continues and is not part of your association with the client). Because he was a client for your current business, it can blur the lines. Second, if you join him, make sure there is a business entity. By working together for profit, you will have already formed a partnership for tax purposes. Best to get an entity, both for the legal protection and also for the clarity of law and accounting. LLCs are simplest for small ventures; C corps are useful if you have lots of early losses and owners that can't use them personally, or if you want to be properly formed for easy consumption by a strategic. Most VCs and super-angels prefer everybody be a straight C. Again, remember to define, as necessary, what you are contributing to be an owner and what you are retaining (your original business, which for simplicity may already be in an entity). As part of this process, make sure he defines the cap table and any outstanding loans. Auntie June and Cousin Steve might think their gifts to him were loans or equity purchases; best to clear this issue up early before there's any more money in it. Third, with regard to price, that is an intensely variable question. It matters what the cap table looks like, how early you are, how much work he's already done, how much work remains to be done, and how much it will pay off. Also, if you do it, expect to be diluted by other employees, angels, VCs, other investors, strategics, and so on. Luckily, more investors usually indicates a growing pie, so the dilution may not be at all painful. But it should still be on your horizon.
Our second to last addition was due to buying out a smaller business. We do call locally owned and small scale businesses often but they surprising have a contract set up with a different company or aren't looking to sell right away.
The estimated approach puts more burden on you to get it right.  Depending on when in the year you make the sale, it may or may not have advantages to you in addition.  Other than the responsibility of ensuring that you make the payment on time, the pros and cons seem to be: Either strategy is legitimate.  It depends on when in the year you have the sale, how sure you are of the sale, and just your personal preference on how to get this done.  Your total tax due for the year will not be different (as long as you pay in such as way that you don't incur late penalties in any quarter).
Most US states have rules that go something like this: You will almost certainly have to pay some registration fees, as noted above.  Depending on how you organize, you may or may not need to file a separate tax return for the business. (If you're sole proprietor for tax purposes, then you file on Schedule C on your personal Form 1040.)  Whether or not you pay taxes depends on whether you have net income.  It's possible that some losses might also be deductible. (Note that you may have to file a return even if you don't have net income - Filing and needing to pay are not the same since your return may indicate no tax due.)  In addition, at the state level, you may have to pay additional fees or taxes beyond income tax depending on what you sell and how you sell it. (Sales tax, for example, might come into play as might franchise taxes.)  You'll need to check your own state law for that. As always, it could be wise to get professional tax and accounting advice that's tailored to your situation and your state.  This is just an outline of some things that you'll need to consider.
Thanks for the reply.  These are good points. I didn't think about the fact that they essentially control the price at that point. Especially with a contract agreement.   I decided to not go with an exclusive selling rights deal. Too much market potential to restrict myself.
Pay yourself, and give yourself the flexibility to pay others when you can't (or don't want) to do it all yourselves. So, what's the point of all this? How do you actually make any money? In two ways: 1) selling the whole thing later, and 2) cash flow. For 1, it's important that you not be in a situation where you are betting that in the future there will be a ""person richer, and dumber, than I am now"". If the current owner wanted 2 million, then 1 mil, then less, over multiple years...this suggests either he is delusional about the value of his place (and most property owners are), or that its actually hard to find a buyer for such a business. You are going to want to make sure you understand why that is, because most of the value of real estate is...well, in the real estate itself! For 2, you need cash coming in that's considerably more than the cost of running the place. Also, cash flow can strongly change the value of the business for resale (depending on the multiple, this can make a huge difference or prevent you from selling the thing at all). You mentioned you want to put in more cabins, more marketing/sales efforts, etc. That's great, but first, that would mean added investment beyond the purchase price. Is it legally and physically practical to add more cabins, and what is their current utilization rate? If they are only renting 10% of their current capacity, increasing capacity may be premature. This will also vary through the year, so you may find there is a problem with being sold out sometimes...but only for a small percentage of the time. Which means you'll be adding buildings only to have them used for a fraction of the year, which will be very hard to make a profit from. If cash flow is good, ideally even being enough to cover a loan payment to help cover the purchase price (and remember that commercial real estate loans are much smaller loan-to-value ratios than in residential real estate), there is one final barrier to making money: the damn non-regular maintenance!
Running a sandwich shop and, say, a software consulting service are quite different things.  I had two employees at one point, following the kind of thinking in the article.  But I found what that meant was that I had to spend more time being a manager and salesperson and much less time doing the work I enjoyed.  To make it viable I would have had to scale up to the point where I had at least one salesperson and maybe a manager, which would have required more income-producing staff to support them.  Instead, I scaled back to just myself, and have been very happy with that decision.  The article also underestimates what can be made in consulting or IT contracting.  Rates well above $100/hr are common for people with expertise (as opposed to commodity providers), and billing at least 40 hours a week is not usually a problem.  It's certainly true that a one-man operation is much more likely to put a ceiling on your earnings, but (a) that ceiling can be a lot higher than the article suggests, and (b) depending on the business, breaking that ceiling and earning much more is certainly possible in some businesses, for example where you have the opportunity to sell your work in product form rather than hourly.
No link ~ I agree. That's the average style of marketing on social that most small business owners and clients do. I had a social media client I was managing. I provided them with authentic and creative content. All for brand awareness tailored to generate real live traffic into the business. It was doing well until they canceled my service because they felt that the lower tier text based discount and promotion content would be better. ~ Its sad that the average entrepreneur does not understand the principles of providing authentic real value over cheapening their business to make a buck. Its not a long term mentality.
From experience, Mastercard and Visa charge vendors about the same (around 2%-5%) while American Express and Diners Club are astonishingly expensive (6%-10%) and you'll find that few small retailers are very comfortable accepting these. The variation comes from the volume of trade that vendors provide.  A big retailer will negotiate a very low rate while smaller businesses will be hit with higher charges.