Monthly Archives: May 2015

Taking Care Of Business

Business

So, I’m just about done with the preliminary steps for getting this business off the ground. I’m going to document the various steps that I’ve taken so far, along with some of the advice that I’ve received from people who know much more about this process than I do.

First of all, I registered Out Of My Mind LLC with the state of Oregon. Apparently, the LLC designation is a state thing, and doesn’t really mean much to the feds. It took several minutes online and I was done. There isn’t much else to do at this point, if you’re the only person working for the company. I was told that I would want to have an Operating Plan in place before bringing on any other employees. Otherwise, there is the potential for all kinds of unexpected bad things. It was also stressed to me that the first thing I should do is open a company bank account and keep my personal and business finances separate. Otherwise, if there is ever an audit of the company, it becomes a personal audit automatically. Point taken.

After registering my business, I requested a EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS, which took a few minutes online. After filling out the form and submitting it, I was able to download the document after a couple minutes of processing. During the application is also when I was told that I’m still considered a Sole Proprietor by the feds. I suspect that I may have to get another EIN if I ever hire any employees, but I’ll save that question for my accountant.

With my business license and EIN, I was able to open up my business bank account. Since I hadn’t done much research into banking options, I ended up going with the same bank that I use for my personal accounts. Some advice I received was that it is much easier to make contributions to or draws from the business account if they are at the same bank, which can save some frustration. In addition, it is a national bank, which could also save some headaches if I’m ever traveling for business or dealing with non-local entities. Eventually, if I have time to research banking options, I can always move the account(s).

I’ve also been trying to get all of my web sites and online presence set up, but I’ll leave that for another post.

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Starting up

Development

Well, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks for sure.

I just registered my business and got my EIN and bank account. I’ve also been meeting regularly with other game devs and business people to get information about starting a company. I suspect that the information I’ve been gathering will make for another post soon.

Here’s a quick list of the tools and services that I am using:

  • Unity
    • This is the primary content tool that I am using. It’s a free game engine for companies that make less than $100K/year.
  • Unreal Engine
    • This is another game engine, which is free to use and only requires royalties if you make any money with your project. I have this set up, but am focusing on Unity to start, since I have the most recent experience with it.
  • Android SDK
    • This is necessary to build apps for Android devices.
  • Oculus Rift SDK
    • This is necessary to build VR projects for the Oculus Rift
  • Sublime Text 2
    • Fast and lightweight text editor. Not very easy to configure, but the defaults work pretty well nonetheless.
  • Git
    • This is the source control system that I am using on my local machine. It’s a free distributed version control system.
  • BitBucket
    • This is a Git (and Mercurial) based online server for hosting repositories.
  • Test Fairy
    • This is a test build distribution and testing platform. It allows devs/testers to download builds directly to their devices without going through the app stores. It also captures debug data whenever the app is run.
  • GIMP 2
    • This is an image manipulation program, with more than enough features to create authentic programmer art.
  • Blender
    • This is a 3D modelling program, which has a range of tools and capabilities to rival any licensed programs. Now, if I can just learn to use it well.

Well, I’ve written one post so far. Let’s see how frequently I can keep doing that.

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