I have been thinking of making my own company in web design but i don't know how to go about it, i have made my own site up and have got a small portfolio, but that side i can manage.

 

But i iam unsure f anything i must do legally? must i register the busines name etc.?

 

Also to provide web hosting i currentlyhave a reseller account hosted by somebody else, if i was looking at hosting my own sites on my own server what exactly would i need? is it just the case of buying a server(how?) and then keeping it on forever?

 

Thats basically covered all my problems, is there any first hand advice from anybody in this situation?

 

Thanks everyone!

Well not too sure about everything else really. I'd be interested to know some answers to that as well.

 

But I would recommend that you continue using your reseller account if you don't know much about the business of hosting. I would say the odds of down time are greatly increased if you do it yourself. A simple power outage would take down all your sites you are hosting if you dont have a backup generator. Then theres the matter of protecting from malicious attacks, bandwidth management, space, backups, setting up things properly etc. I'd think it would be more trouble than its worth for that.

In parts;

To be completely legal you should register the company with companies house. To start with i guess as a sole trader is easiest. You would then need to declare all earning to the tax man, joy oh joy.

 

Obviously it is up to you if you want to do the above, businesslink provide good free advice, and have local offices for each county.

 

As for hosting, if only it was simple as buying a server and plugging it in. You need to think of bandwidth (standard lines will never do), IP etc.

 

I would continue using a reseller account until you have alot of sites and then you could look at buying rackspace in a datacenter somewhere. Then you still get guarantees on uptime and the like.

 

Ultimately I think if you keep your overheads low, then the more chance you have of getting your business off the ground.

ah btw i am from England and do not have much finance behind me, just came out of full education at 18.

 

Thanks for the quick replies!

I have been considering something similar. I can't see you needing a great deal of cash you've got your computer and i assume some software. Although there are defiantly going to be extra costs. Banks & the UK governments love new uk business you could try applying for a grant or possibly a business account. Best advice would be get in touch with someone like businesslink as i'm not as clued up as i should be