There are plenty of ways to establish a successful business, providing products and services that will draw customers and generate revenues. Before you can start your business, however, there are some important decisions you’ll need to make. For example:

• Exactly what will your product portfolio consist of?

• What will be the legal structure or model for your business?

• What’s your basic business plan for creating a sustainable, profitable customer base?
  
  
  

This post will address each of these questions, positing that small business startups can position themselves for success by incorporating digital planners and digital stationary; and, that before reaching that point, it’s wise to choose the Limited Liability Company (LLC) structure to establish your business.

What is an LLC?

First things first: What is an LLC, and what makes it so meaningful for business startups?

When you first begin to generate revenue on the basis of your self-employment, the law automatically considers you to be a Sole Proprietor. There is nothing necessarily wrong with being a Sole Proprietor, and some business owners choose to continue as Sole Proprietors forever.

With that said, if you’re interested in achieving scalable growth, it may be beneficial to opt into LLC status. When you register an LLC, you’re actually creating a whole new legal entity. In other words, your business is its own thing, not just an extension of yourself. This is a key difference between an LLC and a Sole Proprietorship.

Why does all of this matter? For one thing, it matters because you can keep your personal assets separate from your business assets, meaning your house, car, and the bank account you share with your spouse are off-limited to creditors and to potential lawsuits.

That’s just one of many benefits that the LLC provides. An LLC also has built-in managerial flexibility, tax flexibility, light regulatory burdens, and more. The bottom line: It’s one of the most popular legal structures for small business startups, and there’s ample reason why.

How Do You Start an LLC?

If you decide to register your company as an LLC, what next? The requirements vary by state, so knowing how to form an LLC in California won’t be as helpful if you’re in Wyoming. With that said, there’s a pretty common trajectory required for registering an LLC:

• Make sure you have a business name that’s not in use by other LLCs in your state.

• Choose a person or individual to serve as your Registered Agent (empowering them to receive tax and legal documents on your behalf).

• Submit your Articles of Organization to the state, detailing the purpose of your business, its members, and basic contact information.

• Pay the LLC registration fee in your state, which is often as low as $20 to $50.

• Consider drafting an Operating Agreement, which provides your LLC with a kind of constitution. (This isn’t legally necessary, but it can certainly be helpful.)

• Claim your employer identification number (EIN) from the IRS.

• Establish a business bank account, separate from your personal bank accounts.

That’s the basic outline for how to start an LLC. Now we come to the next topic: Why you might incorporate digital planners and digital stationary into your LLC startup.

The Case for Digital Planners and Digital Stationary

This may surprise you, but more than seven out of 10 people now say they rely on a digital planner to help manage their life. And while some people may find the standard iOS Calendar feature to be effective, more and more professionals seek the more advanced scheduling features that digital planners can provide.

Along the same lines, the overwhelming majority of our interpersonal communications now unfold in the digital space, making old-fashioned paper stationary a thing of the past. Not so with digital stationary, which provides a more personalized and stylish option for online or electronic correspondence.
All of that’s just to say that, for small business owners looking to add a new revenue stream to their business, selling digital planners and digital stationery presents a lot of opportunity. Let’s take a closer look at some of the tremendous benefits that these products can offer.

What are the Benefits of Digital Planners?

We’ll start with digital planners. Planners are obviously very relevant in all of our lives, and switching from an analog or bare-bones planner to a more advanced digital one can yield a number of benefits. Here are some of the selling points you might make to your customers:

• Digital planners are highly portable. With a digital planner, your customers will be able to access their all-important schedules anytime and anywhere, without the need to tote around an old-fashioned, hardbound planner or notebook.

• With a digital planner, customers have plenty of room to individualize. Digital planners provide plenty of options for your customers to select different layouts and templates, or to add and remove sections as needed.

• Digital planning tools can be synced across devices. Looking for a product that allows your customers to add an item to their to-do list via smartphone, then check it off once they’re back on their laptop? Digital planners more than meet the mark.

• Digital planners are a great option for eco-conscious consumers. For customers who are looking for smart ways to curb their waste production and to minimize their carbon footprints, digital planners are the way to go for sure!

Clearly, there’s a lot of upside to incorporating digital planners into your LLC startup, allowing you to open up an exciting new revenue stream. The same can be said of digital stationary. Let’s take a closer look.

What are the Benefits of Digital Stationary?

Some of the advantages of digital stationary include:

• Digital stationery offers a lot of room for creativity. Advanced editing and design flourishes provide customers with a wealth of options for personalizing their correspondence.

• Using all-digital tools lends itself to greater organization. Selling digital stationary and digital planners allows you to provide your customers with synchronous options for keeping their affairs well-organized.

• Using digital stationary lends itself to increased productivity. Because your customers will be able to draft personalized communications from anywhere, and from a full range of devices, they can enjoy a significant boost in their ability to get work done.

The bottom line: Selling digital stationary and digital planners can help your startup LLC tap into a whole new market. Now the question is, how do you get started?

A Guide to Selling Digital Stationary and Digital Planners

There are a few steps that can lead to success as you try to incorporate digital planners and stationary into your small business LLC.

1) Choose the right platform.

Unless you have your own proprietary software to design digital planners and stationary, you’ll need to choose a platform to help you create them. There are plenty of options out there to allow for digital sketching, or to offer you some premade templates. Check out some of the solutions available from The Pink Ink!

2) Decide which features to offer.

In working with your chosen design platform, you’ll need to decide which features and amenities your product should include. Common examples include habit trackers, goal-setting guides, and gratitude logs. As you try to decide which features are right for your LLC, you’ll want to think carefully about your existing customer base, and about synchronicity with your current lineup of products.

3) Always keep your end user in mind.

As you design your digital products, make user experience your top priority. Some general rules of thumb that we’d provide include:

• Create a cohesive aesthetic by using the same colors and fonts throughout your product.

• Include plenty of clickable links and tabs, making navigation simple and intuitive.

• Don’t forget to allow plenty of space for customization via versatile and customizable page templates.

4) Do plenty of testing.

You never want to rush a product to market before it goes through a rigorous testing process. Spend a few weeks using the products yourself, getting a feel for the user experience and feature utility. Also share with some family members, trusted friends, or colleagues, allowing them to test out your digital products and to offer their genuine feedback. This can provide an invaluable opportunity to troubleshoot and to refine your digital planners and your digital stationary.

5) Make sure you have payment options in place.

Since these products are all digital, you’ll need to establish easy online payment options for your customers, whether that’s PayPal or Stripe. Note: This is an area where having an LLC really helps, as LLCs can accept payments in the name of the company (as opposed to Sole Proprietorships, where you’ll only be able to accept payments made out to you individually).

6) Price appropriately.

To arrive at the best price for your digital products, we recommend that you:

• Research the competition, getting a good sense of the general, competitive price range.

• Take into account the resources you’re expending to design and produce your planners and stationary.

• Think about your target audience, keeping in mind the kind of price point they will be alright with.

  
  

7) Be strategic in your marketing.

As you position these new additions to your product lineup, make sure you articulate both why the product aligns with your LLC’s other offerings and how the product benefits your customer.

Diversify Your LLC. Branch Out into Digital Planners and Digital Stationary.

The bottom line: Every small business can benefit from a diversified revenue stream, and LLC startups are no exceptions. Consider ways in which you might diversify by adding digital products to your existing value proposition.