Business
to totally redo
General
- Everything I wish someone had told me (about freelancing)
- First month freelancing.
- Ask HN: How do you sell yourself as a new freelancer to clients?
- Rethink your Startup Website: Make a Net, not a Funnel
- http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-month-retrospective/#content
- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4471030
- http://www.sequoiacap.com/ideas
Legal
Sole Trader
Limited Company
You must set up the company with Companies House and let HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) know when the company starts business activities.
Every financial year, the company must:
put together statutory accounts send Companies House an annual return send HMRC a Company Tax Return The company must register for VAT if you expect its takings to be more than £77,000 a year.
If you’re a director of a limited company, you must:
fill in a Self Assessment tax return every year pay tax and National Insurance through the PAYE system if the company pays you a salary
Information
- Docracy - Open Legal Documents
- http://www.businessinsider.com/document-center - american
Contract
Software licensing
Lookup any software license shortly summarized in plain English.
Money
Tax
- http://www.besttaxback.com/calculator/taxcalc.aspx
- http://www.easyaccountancy.co.uk/about/freelancer_sole_trader_take_home_calculator.html
Sole traders’ tax responsibilities:
- send a Self Assessment tax return every year
- pay Income Tax on the profits your business makes
- pay National Insurance
- register for VAT if you expect your business’ takings to be more than £77,000 a year.
Limited Company: Any profit it makes is owned by the company, after it pays Corporation Tax. The company can then share its profits.
Tools
Banks
Tridos
"We do not provide counter banking services from our Edinburgh office (or indeed any of our UK offices) but are pleased to meet with business customers who have a pre-arranged appointment."
Co-operative
Online service, no real-life access?
Has branches under the name Britannia. One on George Street.
Invoicing
Open source
Services
- http://www.bookkeepy.co.uk/ - nice and clean
- https://www.invoicejournal.com/ - popped up via hn
Accounting
Software
- Gnucash
Services
- http://www.freeagent.com/?referrer=33dgfkb0 - rachel's code
Pricing
In lump sums for set period of hours done.
Trading
Payment gateways
- http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/good-riddance-paypal/ - don't use paypal
- http://www.binkd.com/general/why-we-no-longer-accept-paypal/
- https://gocardless.com/ - 1% per transaction up to a maximum of £2.00
- http://simplifiedecommerce.com/
- Authorize.Net - Payment Gateway
Funding potentials
- Funding Scotland - Signposting funding opportunities for Charities, Community Groups and Businesses around Scotland.
Freelance job markets
- oDesk is the world’s largest and fastest-growing online workplace, ranked #1 by annual contractor earnings.
- Freelancer.com is the world's largest outsourcing marketplace,
empowering entrepreneurs & small businesses worldwide.
- stackoverflow: Careers 2.0
Marketing
Gumtree
- http://www.gumtree.com/telecoms-computer-services/edinburgh
- http://www.gumtree.com/tuition-lessons/edinburgh
- http://www.gumtree.com/computing-it-jobs/edinburgh
- http://www.gumtree.com/marketing-jobs/edinburgh
- http://www.gumtree.com/media-design-creative-jobs/edinburgh
- http://www.gumtree.com/volunteer-charity-work-jobs/edinburgh
Hiring
- Hiring your first employee (a UK guide)
- How I hire writers
- http://ryancarson.com/post/26412233938/hiring-your-first-employee
- http://www.ewherry.com/2012/06/the-recruiter-honeypot/
Ideas and other
- Ask HN: Is a starting an enterprise software startup worth the hassle?
- Don't Follow Your Passion: A Smarter Way to Find a Product to Sell
- Making Sense of Minimum Viable Products
- Finding Your Voice With the Media: How to Pitch a Journalist
- Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich?
- Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...
- http://www.learningjar.com/publishedSkill?learningPathId=4f960132e4b02d171fd681e1
- http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/gamification-the-art-of-attracting-and-k/240003409
- http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2012/07/traction-mistakes.html
- http://blog.press42.com/index.php/2012/11/05/storytelling-video-pitch/
- http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators
- http://gettingreal.37signals.com/
- http://appbot.co/blog/lessons-learned-launching-a-minimum-viable-product
- http://refer.ly/blog/most-revealing-interview-question/
- http://www.inigo.net/ - edinburgh web design
- http://dandreamsofcoding.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/why-wont-anyone-talk-to-me-what-recruiters-look-for-in-a-resume/
- http://mattsencenbaugh.com/on-being-a-junior-developer/
- http://steveblank.com/2012/11/27/open-source-entrepreneurship/
- http://gazit.me/2012/12/05/designing-presentations.html
- https://hackpad.com/EgXuEtSibE7#Web-And-Mobile-Revenue-Models-(final)
- http://www.pfinn.net/markets-not-ideas-for-bootstrappers-founders.html
Social
- http://ircstartups.pbworks.com/ - #startups, non-official hn channel (see also ##hackernews)
- http://dribbble.com/