Web Design Wikiclass | Lecture / Case Study - Initial Setup of an Online Business

A Web Design Lecture by Steven Choy

Overview: This lecture presents some basic steps in setting up an online business. You will see the various knowledge and skills that are important in growing an online business; the working of the Web, DNS, and the internet, online payment methods, and web-based applications. You will see some real-life demostrations in class.

Step 0: You have something!

You have something in your mind.
You have passion to make thing happen.
You want to start an online business.
You are extremely good at something.

(A good reading for you: http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html (What startups are really like)

Step 1: Found your company

Types of companies: sole proprietorship 「獨資經營」 , partnerships 「合夥業務」 , or incorporation 「法團」 ?
Some good readings for you:

Choosing Your Legal Structure

社區法網 - 商業及貿易

「獨資經營」、「合夥業務」及「有限公司」有何特點？它們有何優點和缺點？

成立有限公司比獨資及合夥業務（無限公司）有更多好處：

有限公司股東只需付擔應繳之股本金額，相反無限公司東主或合夥人要個人承擔公司一切負債。

有限公司是一獨立個體，與股東在法律上是不同個體。無限公司與東主或合夥人在法律上是同一個體，公司被訴訟東主或合夥人要負上法律責任。

有限公司可以透過發行股票籌集資金，例如上市，渠道較廣泛。無限公司只能透過東主或合夥人注資，範圍較狹窄。

Open a bank account for your company.

Step 2: Get your internet domain

Your domain name is an important part of your business branding.
The domain owner has control over where the domain directs. Domains can be purchased from a registrar by individuals or companies.
Some interesting tools

http://www.bustaname.com/ - Domain Search - BustAName

http://www.domainsbot.com/ - DomainsBot - Available domain suggestions, name spinner

http://domai.nr/ - Domainr, the domain name search engine

(Demonstration will be shown in class)

Step 3: Have your website up

Set up a server in your bedroom, or get a web hosting company to host your website on a professional server?
Shared hosting, virtual private servers, or dedicated servers?
Virtual Private Servers (VPS) is a good option.

(Demonstration will be shown in class)

Step 4: Sign up a Google Apps Standard Edition

What is Google Apps (Google 應用服務 )?

Google Apps is a service from Google for using custom domain names with several Google products. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites. (extracted from wikipedia)

URL: http://www.google.com/apps/, http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

Some basic things you need to do when you register a Google Apps account:

You need to verify that you own the domain (by uploading some file to your website).

You need to activate your email account by adding some records in your DNS server.

After your setup, you and your company staff can use Google Mail in your own domain. Is it wonderful?
(Demonstration will be shown in class)

Step 5: Sign up a Paypal account

Sign up a business account if you are confident with your business.
There are various merchant services for you.
- Website Payments Standard
- Email Payments

Aftering copy and paste the code into your website, you can start to accept online payment.

Some web-based applications to build your business

Marketing - http://www.campaignmonitor.com, http://www.mailchimp.com/
Send, track and collect payments - http://www.freshbooks.com/
Customer relationship management - http://getsatisfaction.com/
Subscription billing service - http://spreedly.com/, http://recurly.com/
Book keeping and accounting - http://outright.com/
Web analytics - https://www.google.com/analytics/

Thanks for Reading

If you would rather like to have this lecture note in printed format, please click the print action link in the top right corner.

If you find any problem in this lecture note, please feel free to tell Steven via steven [at] findaway.hk.