How Much Risk is Right for Your Small Business? Episode 166 of the Small Business Show

The Small business show, episode 166 for Wednesday, April 11, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co, the show that, as you know, is by, for and about small business owners. Our sponsor for this episode is Smile's Textexpander. We're@textexpander.com podcast. You get 20% off your first year subscription. We will talk all about that in a minute, I promise. But for right now, I'm Dave Hamilton here in Durham. Easy for me to say here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton. Somewhere. There you go.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. I'm really good. How about you?

That's good. I'm good. I just found out the link you guys posted on Mac observer that Facebook didn't sell my data to everybody. So that was kind of good.

Well, they didn't, they didn't let Cambridge Analytica have it. That's the only thing that link points to. I guarantee you they.

That's true. Yeah, you're right. They've already. Yeah, I don't know what. That's better. But it didn't go to that company, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised, like, if you filled out this survey that Cambridge Analytica did or one of your friends did, then they get your data. And I was shocked that none of my friends did. I mean, because I've got, like, I've got a lot of geeky friends, of course, that are, like, hyper aware of these sorts of things and not really interested in those kinds of surveys. But I also have, you know, friends and family members that, to be fair, love that kind of stuff. So I'm just surprised. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's seemingly innocuous. Oh, I'll take this survey and, you know, and I get it. Giving up your own privacy stuff or your own data, but your friends, that is insane, you know? Yeah, it's a, it's a big leap in, in that.

So it's a big leap, but it's. It's just how Facebook works, right? Yeah.

I don't believe. Yeah. And I. And for people, I think, to think they're going to stop doing that, I. I just don't think it.

Oh, that's delusional.

It's just their business. Business model. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you take, you know, it's. It. To share and to be connected to people and family, friends, all that kind of stuff. There's a risk, right?

Yep.

You kind of have your stuff up there. Risk. We've talked about some show. You're more public up there than I am. I am. And you know, there's not really a lot that really I think matters when you take that risk. But, you know, it's, yeah, it's kind of similar to your, when you own a business, you wind up taking risks. And I thought today would be a good day to look at that segue.

I like that segue.

I've clearly been doing this for a while. The, you know, let's talk about risks that you take with your small business and the good and the bad. And you know, I, I have a certain take on it and I'm sure you may have different things, but you know, I, I, I think that when you, when you search online about risks and I was doing a little research for this episode, believe it or not, and most things I came across was or were how to minimize risk and you know, what insurance that you need to have and you know, how to avoid risk. And my take on it is very different. Maybe not very different, but it's different than that in the sense that those risks that are going to come up, those are opportunities for you. And actually the kind of fundamental secret sauce of your business can be taking those risks that others won't.

Well, that's it. I mean, to me, that's where the, you know, a lot of times in business you wind up talking about something that you call unfair competitive, Competitive advantage. Right. And that can be, I mean, it can manifest in many different ways. It might be a certain skill set that you as the business owner have that somebody else doesn't. Right. Or you happen to own a license to something that someone else that would be cost prohibitive for somebody else to have. Right. The thing is, in order to gain that unfair competitive advantage, and I mean the word is unfair, but it's, it's, I mean, who cares whether it's fair?

It's unfair to somebody else maybe, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just unfair in that it's unequal. Is, I think the way I, the way I look at that, it's not that it's a bad thing to have this license or this knowledge or anything like that. It's just like you are, you know, you are unequal to everyone else. And that lack of equality gives you a competitive advantage. In order to get that oftentimes, not always, of course, but oftentimes you need to take a risk to get that thing. Like, for example, I'm just going to throw a Completely not real world scenario out there, but I have a real.

One for you when you're done. But yeah, let's do it.

Let's say you were actually, this might actually be a real world example as I head down the path. Let's say you were involved in the development of a software engine that you got for free because you just helped out with the development of it. And then that engine winds up selling for $150,000. Right now you've got $150,000 asset for your business that you're able to start a business that someone else would require a significant amount, you know, six figures plus worth of capital to start and you can bootstrap the thing. Right. That is an unfair competitive advantage. And it's exactly what we did when we started Backbeat Media, you know, because we helped develop an server. Yeah, right. So like. Yeah, and then we, of course, then the company messed with us and we had to sue them to retain that license. But you know, like, but it was worth it because otherwise we had to go spend 150 grand. So it was worth it to spend like 30 grand on.

But you took the risk. Right. And in that sense you, you risked your time.

Yes.

You know, there was no guarantee this.

Was going to pay off for us. Yes, right, correct.

And in actuality you've told the story how it caused problems down the road. Right. So yes, yeah. So that risk and then, you know, we, I don't know, can't put my finger on the date, but I'm sure it'll magically show up in the show notes. You know, we had Tim Cody from Commonwealth Financial on the show, I guess about a year ago and their, you know, advantage, if you will, or one of them was number one, they took tremendous risks when they first started the company, dealing with lots of cash and doing stuff and moving money around. But over time they acquired or, or got banking licenses for every state in the country and those became very, very valuable. And in fact he just sold their company and I know it just closed, I think a few months ago, that sale to a company, a UK based company that wanted those licenses and that was their advantage because they're very, very difficult to get. Especially no surprise in California and New York. Those are two very difficult, very difficult ones to get. And they had to trans transition and part of their process was making, you know, shifting all those licenses to the new, to the new entity. So totally those kinds of things are, you know, those risks are ultimately what, you know, what you get your reward for and you Know, without taking those risks, I would say that you're no different than the person working in the cubicle who never starts their business in the first place. Right? The person that wants to do it, but sits there and maybe talks about it over a couple of beers or something like that and slowly just sees it slip by and doesn't take that risk. That is the, you know, your chance and that's where you, you know, you have to jump.

That's where it can happen.

Take it.

Yeah, no, that, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I say it, I've said it on this show many, many times and I'll say it right now. Ideas are really worth nothing. Or if you want to have an idea worth a hundred bucks, write it on a hundred dollar bill. Ideas aren't going to do anything for you unless you do something with them. Now the thing I always hear from people is, well, but look at all the patent trolls out there, right? Because essentially what they're doing is, you know, threatening people with the patents that they have, which are just nothing more than ideas, except they're way more than ideas. If you've ever gone through the process of getting a patent, you know, they took the action. They took an action and that's a major, like years long headache to go through because you'll file for it and then they'll reject it, requiring more details. But you got to be careful because if you make your patent too detailed, then not, you can't go and troll anybody because nobody will actually have your specific case that's detailed in your patent. So you got to be really clever about it. Like there's a whole process there and you're probably going to pay a fortune in legal fees unless you're an attorney. And maybe that's an unfair competitive advantage, right, to put in your time and that sweat equity. And so there you go. So, yeah, the ideas aren't worth anything unless you do something with them. Yeah.

And you find after, if you started a few companies and you've had some success and everything, you know, from the outside looks very, maybe very easy or you know, oh, look at this person's kind of, you know, he must have had a great idea. But you start to attract people that have those kinds of ideas that, oh, I want to talk to you about this idea I have.

Right.

Well, to me those are code. That's a code word for or code phrase for, hey, I had this idea, I want to give it to you and have you create a business around it and you do all the work Because I'm a. An idea guy. And, you know, things like I'm a dashboard kind of person. I like to look at, you know, 30,000ft and look down. Those are all phrases like, hey, I want you to do the work and then give me, you know, half the profit. You know, that kind of thing. So you have to be careful how you respond to those kinds of ideas. And my typical response is, oh, you know, hey, that's really interesting. Why don't you write up something? Creating, you know, what you would see as an agreement, what you would do, what I would do, which is, you know, we've talked about the working agreement before here on the show, but I push it back to them to see if they will even take the next steps. And, you know, nine times out of ten, not to be, you know, overly broad, but you never hear about it again because those. Those folks don't want to sit down, spend a few hours grinding out a possible agreement, because then that starts to introduce accountability, you know, And I love ideas. And sitting around a campfire or sitting at the bar or restaurant talking about it is awesome. It's so great, and it's fun everything else, but it's. It's that action that, you know, I always joke, I call it a symphony of action, is what really makes businesses work. And part of that is, you know, the risk. And I think also that I'm in the middle of a transaction right now or just the beginning of a transaction that has a lot of risk. And I've been feeling the last few days, some not insignificant. No, I wouldn't say anxiety, but anxiety. Nervous about.

Yeah, yeah. Anxiety is not a bad thing. You know, like, I. I tell people that I feel some level of anxiety every time before I walk on stage. Now there's different levels of it. Like, there's the debilitating version that doesn't allow you to even step on stage. Right. That's not what I feel. It's that I care. And I realize, yes, that that's it. Stepping on stage to do any kind of performance, including simply speaking, for five minutes, is fraught with risk. Anything could happen. You could get what you're saying, you could remember what you're saying, and then realize 10 minutes later that it's wrong. You know, like, you could be. You could. You could think you're doing absolutely the right thing and find out three days later that somebody sued you for slander because you, you know, you said something. Right? I mean, there's like a million things that could totally go wrong. And you want to get it right or I do. And so I do always feel that anxiety. So, like, there's different. Like you said, you didn't want to use the term anxiety because it's not crippling to you, but it's fuel.

I find it's fuel.

Yeah.

It's motivating.

Right.

And so I would say, or at least in my case, when there's a risk involved and you take the plunge, which I've done in this case, and I'm going to talk about this transaction once it closes shortly and we'll use it as an exercise.

Sure.

I automatically start to think, like, I find myself laying awake at night going, okay, I have to do this, I have to do that. I have to do this. It is definitely pushing me because I have this innate, you know, fear of failure. And I. I'm. I don't, you know, I don't talk about things a lot until I start to see some success. And I realize. I like that because of course, it.

Makes you look good.

You know, it's the highlight reel. Makes me look better.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it also makes me seem. I hate this word, but I'm going to use anyway, less flaky. And people that do lots of different things and have their hands in different, you know, jars and businesses and this and real estate and that sometimes can. When you try to explain to people what you do, they kind of look at you with this blank stare, like, what? You know, well, some new nutty idea or something that you're doing. So I typically don't talk about it until I'm already having some success.

Now, that's why. Now that. That makes sense to me, because to me, it's normal that you would have, you know, like, 16 things going on, all at varying stages of development, and. And half of those might never come to fruition or even more than half sometimes. Right.

More than that.

But to me, that's normal. But you're right. When people ask me what I do, I usually lead with. Twenty years ago, we started a website called Mac observer that publishes. That's right, Right. That publishes these things.

I've done that, too.

And then from that, we've spun off a bunch of other related businesses. Right. Because now I've sort of incorporated this. I have my hands in a lot of things. But here's the one that you, A, may have heard of and B is. Is, you know, successful, stable, established. Yeah, exactly.

Established. That's a good word. And I've done. I. I do the same thing, and I've typically changed it to be like, hey, well, I own a few small businesses and some real estate, and I'm done. And then if they ask. Ask a little more, then I would go, oh, well, we do this and do that and do that. I mean, it'd take me a half an hour to get down to the small business show podcast, of course.

Right, yeah. No offense. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. No, of course not. But it's like your wheelhouse continues to expand, and if. And if you're talking to someone that's a W2 earner, and there's nothing wrong with that, and I've employed W2 earners for my whole life, and that's great. And. But if. If it's somebody that's getting a paycheck every couple weeks, as your wheelhouse description expands into all these different things they do, sometimes it can. It can go awry, and they look at you like, oh, wow, this guy's a flake, or that kind of thing, so.

Or he's trying to boast, right?

Yeah, trying to boast.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely. No, that's never a good thing.

No, it's never. It's never a good thing. Yeah.

But that's part about talking about successes instead of, you know, trying this new thing, you know, but so I think coming back to, you know, the risk, it really focuses your. Focuses you to minimize failure and to maximize the opportunity. Because, like, in this new transaction, opportunity, risk that I'm involved in now, it's going to be a great story if I make it successful. If it's not, it's going to be a great lesson. But maybe I won't talk about it quite as much.

Right, right. Well, it'll come up in very compartmentalized ways.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, we spin. We're going to do a show next week all about living a charmed life based around your small business or businesses. And one of those things, benefits, is you get to kind of create your own reality. So instead of someone else telling your story, you get to tell it yourself. And so you can pick and choose. And even, you know, when you're talking about failure, you can discuss it in such a way. It's like, wow, I really learned a lot. And, you know, I used the phrase, Nelson Mandela said it first, but it's like, I never lose. I either win or learn. And it's so true. So if you can, you know, couch it in such a way that, oh, I really took a bath on this deal. But what I really learned was this. And it set me up for the next opportunity because I already knew, you know, this kind of thing.

So I want to. I want to share something about that, though. Just. I mean, it's obvious to anyone that's been through it, but just in case you haven't or you have and you haven't quite finished processing it, all of these things that Shannon and I both sort of cavalierly talk about as failures, and I learned something, and it was. You know, in the end, it was good. And all this stuff, every single one of those royally sucked to go through. Like, painful, painful, awful, awful. Like, you know, you say you stay up at night thinking about, oh, well, how can I, you know, hedge my bets on this and maybe do this better? That's nothing compared to what you're staying up at night thinking about when you're living through one of these failures, especially as, you know, in those. Those hopefully few days. But it's usually more than one where the reality of the impact of it sets in and you figure it out. Right.

Devastating.

It's devastating. It sucks so bad. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. That, like.

Yes, it's a really good point. Yeah, it's a good point. Of, like, you mentioned the highlight reel, and we talk about it here a lot. We ask every guest about their mistake, and of course, it gets kind of couched in a. In a way, you know, it doesn't look that bad, but it can be really bad. And maybe we should do a show all about failure, maybe, because. Yeah, maybe. But, you know, it's tough as an optimist and as an entre, a serial entrepreneur, business owner that has come back from many failures. Not to couch it that way, because I feel like I'm programming myself as I talk.

Yeah.

Every single day.

You're fooling yourself in a. In an intentional good. Well, hopefully good way. Yeah. But certainly an intentional.

Even that, Like. Yeah, like, I'm a huge fan of Beck, you know, the. The artist. And when I listen to his song, you know, I'm. I hate to even say it, but he has a song where the, you know, the lyrics are, I'm a loser. You know, baby? And I always change it to, you're a loser, because I cannot sing that song and say that word because for, you know, 30 plus years, I've been telling myself, no, no, I'm this, I'm this, I'm that. And it's really. And it's worked for me.

So, y.

You know, so I think the. In addition to motivating you, it kind of can help prove to yourself that, hey, I am a badass. And, you know, our inner judge, I think part of the human condition is that we're most people, maybe not. Maybe not everybody, but certainly speaking for myself, I guess, sure. Your inner judge is often very critical. And so you need to train that judge over time to create what I call a circular, self fulfilling engine that leads to your inevitable success. That was a mouthful. And I'll say it again. The circular thing that once you have some success and you feel good about it and you start training your inner voice, if you will, that, look, I did this. I came back from, maybe it was a little failure and I built on it, but then consciously or subconsciously, you're gonna keep thinking about that and it will lead to more success on top of that. And I really firmly believe in this.

That's why I really like your idea of the annual executive summary, which sounds a whole lot more, a whole lot less sexy than it really is, where you're essentially writing this narrative to yourself about, yes, some of the failures, some of the things that didn't work well in the previous year, and some of the things you're going to correct, but you're also patting yourself on the back for the things that you did well. And to me, that really is the most important part of that because no one else other than the bank, when they show you your balance, is going to pat you on the back for succeeding. Like, it just doesn't. Like, especially the little victories. Like, I mean, obviously if you have a business and you sell it or whatever, that's something that a lot of people can wrap their heads around and they're gonna say congratulations, right? But nobody's gonna, like, you're not gonna get enough congratulations for figuring out the right. Like, hey, now we use slack like that. Really, like, look at all the time that saved us or whatever. Like these stupid little things.

Yeah, we started using textexpander and it just blew everything up and made us look much bigger and more important than we actually are.

Funny that you should mention that, Shannon. You're the king of segues today. That reminds me, I want to our first sponsor for this episode, which coincidentally is Textexpander, where@textexpander.com podcast you get 20% off of your first year subscription to something that you did just accurately described, right? The year that you start using textexpander is a year that you should absolutely and will pat yourself on the back for doing a great thing for yourself and your business. Like. Like I say it every time we do this. This is an app service that I simply wouldn't want to use my computer or do business without. Textexpander lets you take all those bits of text that you reuse, right? Could be your address, could be your email address. It could be a customer service email. It could be something as simple as your phone number, things that you type regularly, and you want to make sure you. You want to make sure everything is accurate. And textexpander, of course, does that, because you take all these snippets and put them into textexpander, and then you assign them to little shortcut codes. So, you know, your thanks for ordering from us email might be comma, tfo, right, for thanks for ordering. And now you've got this email. The text is exactly what you've honed over time. You've iterated on it. It's perfect. You send it out and you're good to go. Now, maybe you want to include some things in that email, like you want to personalize it, so you want to put the customer's first name in there, and maybe you want to put the name of the product they ordered. Well, what you can do is you can make it so that when you type comma, TFO and it pulls up this snippet, it doesn't just pop the snippet in first. It brings up a little form that lets you fill in those fields to get them exactly right. And then you hit, okay, boom, puts it into the email, you send it off, you're good to go. And here's the cool part. Textexpander for teams lets you share those snippets with everybody in your company. So everybody's operating literally from the same script. It's awesome. You gotta check it out. It is textexpander.com. go ahead. Sorry.

No, no. I was gonna say the form function is one of the things that really separates textexpander. There's, you know, there's a few other, you know, shortcut type apps out there, but being able to, you know, set that up to where you or your employees can fill that stuff out on the fly is really powerful. I love it.

It's huge. Yeah. So visit textexpander.com podcast. That's where you'll get 20% off your first year. When you're checking out, they'll ask which podcast. Make sure. Of course, we'd love it if you selected Small Business show from that. And there you go. Thanks to TexTexpander for supporting this. And Sponsoring this episode. Yeah, man.

Awesome. Hey, and I wanted to make a comment too. You were talking about the executive summary, and I totally agree. And the other thing that we've talked about on the show, and I posted a link to it today in the small business support group at businessshow Co. Facebook was what we call a success list. And it's just a brief, you know, one pager that talks about your success and it reminds you of, you know, what, what things have worked well for you in the past year or whatever. And it could be anything. You know, we've hired a couple new successful employees. We started using new app that was great, like textexpander. We did this, we did that. And so it's good to pause and, you know, write this stuff down and then keep in front of you. You post it on your wall next to your desk or keep it on your computer, whatever, because again, it's all programming yourself from that success, which is going to lead to, you know, more success down the road, right?

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

That's good. And what I want to do is also, you know, the, you know, we talk about risk all the time and, you know, it's kind of. I don't want to sound cavalier about it. You know, it is important to take calculated risks. Right? You want the lowest risk with the highest reward. You can't eliminate it. And I think you do need to embrace it. You know, it's definitely worked for me, but. But you minimize that risk with things like good insurance, a good attorney, a good banker, and a smart accountant. And with that group, you just created your own board of directors, your advisory board, which we've talked about here on the show as well. And those people can help you when you need it. But at the same time, you don't want to fall into trap about asking their advice to take risk because all of those actors are typically adverse to taking risks.

They're going to tell you not to take the risk. Yeah.

They're going to tell you not. You want to have a good insurance in place before you take the risks. You want to have your attorney, they're there to you call your attorney and say, I'm doing this. How do you help minimize the risk in this? You need help doing an agreement. Do we need to start a new llc? Do we need to do this? They can help you with that.

I like that I'm doing this. I do this with, with my employees, too. Right. You just tell them, here's what we're going to do. And with employees I always say we'll test it out for two weeks.

I love that too.

But with your attorney calling them up and asking, should I do this versus I'm doing this, what do we need to put in place? If they really think, and this is true of certainly my employees and probably yours, if you tell somebody we're doing this and they truly think that it's the worst thing you could do and will crater you your business, they're going to tell you that whether you ask them, should I or not.

Correct.

Right. So you will get that like, but it filters out the, the advice for the sake of advice where, you know, whereas if you ask for, hey, what do you think about this? Like you're literally asking people to tell you what they think as opposed to I'm doing this, they're only going to chime in if they have something that they feel very strongly about. And I like that. Yeah, yeah.

And you make it clear to like your attorney, hey, this is going to happen. Your job now is, you know, how do we minimize it? How do we protect ourselves? How do we protect unless, yeah, how do we protect? And that's what they do, you know, and you know, the banker, you should have that relationship beforehand and have cash lined up to use before you need it. Because if you call your banker and you know, your relationship guy who is not the ultimate decision maker and you say, oh, I want to do X, that's totally different, then they start analyzing whether it's a good idea in this. And you know, there's nobody that's more risk averse than a banker. You know, they want, they're not the one to ask, you know, and then finally your accountant, you want to tell him kind of some different, I guess, different opportunities. It would be a, you know, different timelines, but either during or maybe even after to help you minimize your tax loss, liability, make sure your books are clean and everything. So you can minimize paying taxes and risk, I guess, from all that cash that you're going to make by taking the risk in the first place. So those are great people to have on board your team, but don't let them steer you away from opportunities.

No, they're your advisory board, not your management board. Right. You don't work for them, in fact.

That's right.

You'll figure it out pretty quick. They work for you and you pay them. So yeah, don't let, let them, don't let them run the ship, but let them help you guide the ship. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it works out pretty good. And, and otherwise it's. You know, you may really value their opinion, but it's just that. It's just opinion.

Yeah.

And. And it's. It's better sharing a beer with them at some point and then going, man, I can't believe you pulled that one off.

Right. Yeah. Oh, totally. That happens all the time. Yeah. At least it's fun when it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One.

One more thing, you know. Good.

One thing. I don't know where you are on your list.

Yeah, I'm. I'm done. I'm ready to listen.

Yeah. One. One last thing I want to throw out there is the risk involved with setting up a corporate structure is so minimal these days that it. There's few scenarios where it's not worth putting a company in place early in the process. And I say this from personal experience. It had been a while since I'd formed an LLC myself. I'd been part of other things that have been informed or whatever. But just last week, there's this other project. I'm not going to talk about it. I don't know if I'll ever talk about it, to be perfectly honest. But there is this other project that I got involved in just a couple of months ago. It's starting to generate some cash. It's having some success. I probably will talk about it on the show at some point. But it was obvious that we needed a corporate structure. Now we had done a working agreement like we talked about here. We started to hit our. We put a monthly revenue, a fairly low monthly revenue number in there. That was like, when we hit this, that's when we will form the llc. And sure enough, we hit it. And it was like, oh, I guess I better. I gotta form an LLC to hold up my end of the bargain, you know. And so it's like, well, but I don't need anything crazy. This business is small. We decided. We were deciding what state to put an LLC in. We wound up choosing Delaware for a few reasons. Within five days. I started with nothing. Well, actually, I started with $179 in my pocket. I no longer have that one 79 because I paid it to DelawareInc.com who created a Delaware company for me. And within five days, I had not only our, you know, stamped Articles of Incorporation, they're not really articles, but that's what they are. And, and. And then, of course, I think they.

Call them Articles of Organization of Organizations for the llc. That's cool.

Yep.

Yeah.

And. And I didn't choose to pay DelawareInc.com to get my tax ID, because I knew that I could go to the IRS and get it in about 90 seconds. So once I had the articles, I went to the IRS and I got my tax ID for this company, and then I set up a PayPal account. And so now I don't have a real bank account yet, but we will in the next couple days. We literally just got the tax ID this morning, but now it's good to go and we can take money in. And the PayPal thing's important for the way that company's working, and it's just like perfect now we've got this structure. It's not being run by us personally. We can funnel the money the right way and do it. All right. And it literally cost me $179 and probably a total of 10 minutes of my time.

That's great.

So, you know.

Yeah. And it's funny that you say I spent Saturday evening online on the Nevada Secretary of State website doing the exact same thing, starting a brand new llc, not paying, you know, an attorney or legal Zoom or someone 1000 bucks or 500 bucks, whatever they charge to go through and do it. You just kind of jump through some hoops and you can start to, you know, it took me about 15 minutes, a few hundred bucks. And you got your thing with the seal from the Secretary of State and the whole thing. It was great.

Yeah, you're good. I almost did that on my own for this one, but I wound up using Delaware Inc. Because a, it was 179 bucks and it was easy. And that one 79 includes my first year of registered agent services in Delaware.

Oh, that's good.

Which you need to have, like, whatever state you choose. If you happen to live in a state where the LLCs are subject to awful taxes, like I think both Shannon and I do, you don't necessarily want to organize in your. Your home state. You. You want to organize elsewhere. And so you have to have a registered agent, someone that can receive physical mail in the state that you incorporated. So there you go.

We should do a show about that too, about the tips for, you know, starting a new llc, since we talk about all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's great. And another way that you're minimizing your risk, you're still out there doing, putting this thing together, but, you know, you're creating this entity that is, you know, has separation from your personal assets. Correct. You've got to separate.

If something goes sideways, then probably protected. As long as I didn't intentionally commit fraud, which I haven't.

You got it.

There you go.

Yeah, that's right. Awesome. That's great. I love it. That's a good show. And I am, I'm looking forward to getting it out there and getting some comments from everybody. You can, you know, send us a message@feedbackusinessshow.co or come over to the small business support group, talk about it, tell us, you know, what we did right, what we did wrong, what you love, what you hate. BusinessShow co. Facebook.

That's right. Yeah. You can also email us feedbackusinessshow co. We love to hear from you, no matter how, how you choose to do it. Yeah. Listen next week for how to do that.