How to Choose Your Business Type
This project guide helps two Sky’s the Limit members work together through three meetings as they collaborate to choose your business type.
Meeting 1: Discuss business activities, goals, and motivations
Before this meeting:
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Make sure that you’ve had an intro meeting. If you need help navigating your first meeting, visit this Guide to Your First Meeting.
In this meeting:
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Discuss what your business does on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Identify the reason why your business exists. What problem do you solve?
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Discuss your goals and motivations your business. Are you trying to make a profit? Fulfill a social, religious, or educational mission? Or is it a combo of the two?
After this meeting:
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Google it. Try to find other businesses you modeled yours after and see what their status is.
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Note any agreed-upon next steps.
Meeting 2: Discuss pros & cons of business type
Before this meeting:
In this meeting:
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Talk through each of the main business entities in the article.
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Which ones sound most like what you are trying to accomplish?
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Try to determine the pros and cons to your business for each of your top options.
After this meeting:
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Sleep on it. This is a big decision with legal consequences. Make sure you feel good about your final decision.
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Note any agreed-upon next steps.
Meeting 3: Identify next steps for chosen business type
Before this meeting:
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Review your meeting notes from last time and choose the right one for you.
In this meeting:
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Based on the business type you’ve chosen for your business, determine what you need to do to apply for that type of legal business structure.
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Go through the application together and create a list of what information you will need to gather before you apply.
After this meeting:
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Apply for the business type.
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Be sure to mark your project complete, update your business tracker, and start a new project!
Want to talk to someone who can help?
Sky’s the Limit members are connected to a community of volunteer business mentors, more free tools and guides like this one, and exclusive funding opportunities.