Friday afternoon I received a call from my nephew Johan, who is going into business for himself. Johan is a bricklayer and doesn’t have experience running his own business, or with setting up an online presence for a small business.
So, he’s asking his uncles (myself and my brother) for advice on what to do with email, domains, computers, etc.
This post contains a paraphrased version of the advice I gave him.
- Do not mix business and personal communications
- Use a phone with two sim cards
- Use a Mac, not a PC
- Get a good business suite of applications
- Register an internet domain for your business
- Create a website on your domain
- Configure your email
The advice in this post is targeted at a small business owner, setting up shop in the EU. The objective is not to set things up to be as cheap as humanly possible, but to avoid daily headaches and the occasional complex and costly situations, that quickly will negate any savings and add additional costs.
Do not mix business and personal communications
When running a business, customers need an easy way to reach you. When starting out, it is tempting to give customers your personal phone number and email.
I think this is a bad idea, here’s why.
It signals these are your preferred channels of communication, so customers will use them to contact you. This makes it very difficult to enforce your business hours, set boundaries and achieve a decent work/life balance, which is already a challenge for a small business owner.
My recommendation is to set up separate channels of communication for your business and personal life.
This means separate phone numbers, email addresses, social accounts, etc.
Use a phone with two sim cards
Having separate phone numbers doesn’t mean you have to carry two phones with you.
Most smartphones today support e-sim, so adding a second phone number (and data plan) to your phone is very easy and solves that problem neatly.
Use a Mac, not a PC running Microsoft Windows
After years of providing IT support to family, it is clear that PCs running Microsoft Windows create too many problems for home users. The same is true for small businesses, who can’t afford an IT support team like corporations can.
After getting my parents on a Mac, I’ve barely had to do any IT support. The same is true for other family members using Macs and iPads.
OK, but which Mac then?
If you’re a small business owner who doesn’t work in tech or media production, then I would recommend the current entry level configurations of MacBook Air and Mac Mini. They’re very capable machines, you’ll very rarely bump into to performance limits on these. Previous generations with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, etc) are also fine, and can help save some cash.
Get a good business suite of applications
You’ll probably want to have some business suite applications, like email, calendar, cloud storage, vpn, etc.
This is my recommended order.
If I was to start another small business myself, I would only consider Proton. Google and Microsoft are not as dedicated to preserving privacy as Proton. They use our data for advertising and AI training. They also employ dark patterns to trick us into paying for things we don’t need.
If your business is going to be a single person business for a while, I would start with the Proton Unlimited. You can always upgrade later, once you hire your first employee.
Register an internet domain for your business
Your small business should have its own domain. There are several benefits to this.
- It signals professionalism
- You are in control of your email and website, not your hosting providers
- You don’t need to tell anyone that you’re changing hosting providers
Chose a domain registrar that isn’t your hosting provider. This makes things easier in the future, when you want switch providers.
Look for:
- ICANN accredited registrar
- EU jurisdiction and hosting (you’ll want EU protections for disputes, privacy, etc)
- 2FA
A quick internet search should be able to answer the last question: Does {registrar} support 2FA for logins?
Create a website on your domain
Your domain should have a website on it, and not only be used for email.
Depending on your business, it’s fine to have a very simple site. Even just a “business card” website with your preferred contact details and a couple of paragraphs of text about your business will do.
Configure your email
Choose a solid email hosting provider.
If I was starting a small business, I’d use these in priority order:
That’s it! I wish you all the best in your new business venture