starting my business

[armison89]

ok i want to start my business process.
1.) name (J&R Reptiles or Armison's Reptile Menagerie)
2.) Facebook and kingsnake accounts
3.)?

what should i do next?
which name is better?

[RichsBallPythons]

Your better off starting off as a hobbyist breeder first, get few clutches, sell the babies and see if its worth doing it as a sole income.

[armison89]

i dont plan on it being anywhere close to a sole income. i only plan to make atleast 10k a year. but i will still need a business.

[TheSnakeEye]

Armison's Reptiles sounds cool... When you add menagerie it get too complicated.

[Rorschach]

What is a menagerie?

[Rat160]

I think 10k a year is shooting a bit high... Ive been breeding for 2 years now and still havent even broke 5k or anywhere close. Then again I have been holding back...

Personally I have built a website that i will publish soon and other than that the rest is worthless to me. I dont like facebook or myspace or all those other hook up sites. my opinion.

[armison89]

im thinking 10k after about 5-6 years. the first few years will be a lot of hold backs.

[TheSnakeEye]

Make sure you have whatever permits you may to sell & buy snakes. Cover your arse in every way possible so that you don't run into trouble. And as far as starting a website goes, make sure you are producing enough snakes to keep people visiting your page. Cus I'll tell you from a buyer's perspective, if a business has a site but rarely updates their page or rarely has snakes, I probably won't go to their page anymore. You should try establishign your name on this site and others forums and then establish your name on Kingsnake & Fauanclassifieds. THEEEEENNNN publish a site.

Now if you have a large breeding stock we don't know of, then by all means, give it all you got and go all out.

[armison89]

i dont have any breeding age. i have a few that will be ready next year. i will talk to local breeder and see if he has any permits and how to get them.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Here's what you will need:

Check to see if, as a reptile breeder, you need any permits or licenses to start a business. In some States, you may--in others, you may need nothing. (For example, here in Nebraska, pet stores require a special license, but a breeder who does not have a storefront does not require a pet store license, and anything other than cats and dogs also requires nothing).
Reptiles do not require a USDA license.

A) Register as a business with your State, and get your State Tax ID Number.
B) Register your DBA (doing business as). In order to legally use any name other than your own name, you will need a DBA registered. You may be required to publish your DBA in a local paper as part of the process. Expect all of this to cost you a couple hundred.

If you're not yet ready to plunk down a few hundred on getting your business registered, then just wait until you sell your first offspring, and do it all then.

How long it takes you to make 10K per year depends on how much you had to invest, of course, and the size of your collection. Buy a spider and some pastels, it may take you forever--buy an ultramel, and you'll have it the first season.

As for your websites, and advertising....
Suck it up, and get a facebook page set up. I don't like Facebook or Twitter, either, but it's stupid to forgo a valuable advertising venue just because you don't prefer it. Other people use it exclusively, and they will not care that you have a website, because they will never see your website unless you tell them about it on Facebook. Take advantage of any and all advertising venues that you can find. You can use them to let people know when you have new animals available, and what projects you're working on.
You can set up your website and everything before you register your business, because you're not selling anything.

MAKE PROJECTIONS.
You know how long it takes males and females to reach breeding maturity, and you know how large the average ball python clutch is. You can predict roughly how much a morph's price is likely to drop in a year, based on what it has done in the past. Do the math, and figure out how much you're likely to get coming in to your business for the next couple of years. Figure out a best, worst, and average case scenario. Remember, not all females will lay every year, and a snake you were counting on to grow may go off feed on you.

Determine what you're going to use that income for. Figure out how much feed and bedding cost. Well, the whole nine yards--it's a business, and you need all the numbers.

You'll also need all the numbers for your taxes. Keep track of every penny, because the more you can show you spent on your business, the less you will have to give to the government. Keep track of every mile you drive in your car that is related to your business (went to a show? Log that. Went to buy bedding? Log that).