Domain Name, Email, and Other Things to Consider When Setting Up Your Business
By: Barry E. Haimo, Esq.
March 27, 2025
While there are lots of legal “i”s to dot and “t”s to cross when creating your business – especially for certain types of entities – it’s important to remember that there are quite a few non-legal decisions to make as well. We covered some of those in a previous post, but below you’ll find recommendations on some digital choices you’ll need to make, as well as some marketing and branding advice.
Read Transcript
Hi, this is Barry Haimo. Thanks for tuning in for another dose of Bite-sized Bits of Knowledge, where we give you meaningful information in a short amount of time.
Today is the last of the non-legal videos, with some guidance and insight for you along your way.
First, let’s just talk about your domain. You need to have a real domain. You know, your name or some cool description. Dot com, dot us, dot net – whatever.
And that leads me to email. Don’t use the freebie emails like Gmail, Yahoo! or Apple or – I think AOL still exists. Don’t use that. That communicates to others that you’re not serious.
Given how cost-effective it is to acquire a domain and set up an email from a business domain, it just communicates the wrong message. It says you’re not willing to do that.
You’re not serious. You’re not really in business.
I would say, in addition, you need to get the right software. I recommend project management or workflow management software. A CRM would be helpful. And I’d also recommend that you use some sort of workspace like, you know, Google Workspace, which is what they call it this week. I know other companies like Microsoft have their own suites as well. It’s like an all-in-one thing. There’s email, calendar, there’s doc storage and sharing, chat – intra-company chat features.
These are really important and I think the most important thing, at least to me, is that you can scale up and scale down very easily and very cost-effectively. You can really grow without a huge IT expense.
In addition, I would definitely say that you would be very surprised with how much control you can have over the back end of the users. What they can do, what they can’t do, what permissions they have, what’s visible, what’s not visible. You know, really it’s quite sophisticated what they’ve built on these workspace platforms, so I’d encourage you to get that.
Another thing I would suggest would be, when it comes to branding, I would really encourage you to come up with a name and a logo and a slogan that can connect with your ideal customer, because it’s a visual depiction of your business and your brand.
Your name and your logo – it’s tough. I know how it is. It’s going to bother you. It’s going to keep you up at night until you feel like it’s perfect. But it will never be perfect. It’s never going to be perfect. Even when it’s perfect, you’re going to change it later. You’re going to rebrand later. Every company does. So just get something that works. That you feel good about. You feel like it embodies your core values, your vision, and your purpose, and go with it and build it and develop it.
So, to help you design a logo, I put a link in the description of a service that helps you cost-effectively come up with something cool so you can move on to the next big thing to get this off the ground.
So that’s what I got for now. I hope these two videos were helpful. Now, let’s get back to legal and practical advice. Don’t forget to download our free Florida Business Entity Comparison Chart using the link below, and also our Business Planning Stress Test.
Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for more.
Now that you have an overview, let’s dig deeper on some of those basic business decisions you should make right at the beginning to set yourself up for success.
Things to Remember When Creating Your Brand
In the above video I mention the importance of creating a name, logo, and slogan people will connect with. And I really believe that’s true. A huge part of your job as a business is doing everything in your power to stay top-of-mind for potential customers.
With that in mind, let’s talk a bit more about your logo in terms of branding. How exactly do you make a logo that connects with people?
This is one of those things that can tie people into knots overthinking it, because your first instinct may be to actively do something flashy or unusual so people remember you. While this is an understandable instinct, take care not to get so creative that your logo looks amazing… but people have no idea what it is you do. Your goal should be to design something that very clearly tells people who you are and what you do while also hopefully including a bit of creativity. If you’re ever in doubt, opt for clarity over artistry.
In that vein, your logo should utilize your brand colors (two or three tops), and those colors should be used for every piece of marketing material you create. So, for example, if you opt for red, white, and blue, those colors should make up your logo. They should be the only colors (more or less) on your website. And so on and so forth.
The only exception is when you need to use a black-and-white version of your logo, which brings me to another point. You need to make sure that the logo design you go with is simple and clear enough for people to understand it both in color and monochrome.
Just Because You Build It Doesn’t Mean They’ll Come
One last thing that a lot of people neglect early on: make sure you’re adding your business to any and all relevant listing sites as soon as possible. This can be a tedious and time-consuming process, but it is absolutely essential.
Why?
Well, think about what you do when you need to find a business for a particular reason. Where do you go? For most people, the answer is that you Google it. But generally you’re not searching for the name of the business – you’re searching for the type of business.
What happens when you search, say, “plumbers”? Or “bookstore”? Google shows you a list of businesses nearby along with a map. Why are you seeing these businesses? Because they all created Google Business Profiles (or whatever they’re currently calling them). If you don’t create a profile, your business won’t show up here.
At bare minimum, you need this profile. I suggest going beyond this to create profiles on other major search engines and listing sites like Yelp, as well as industry-specific sites, but Google is the place to start.
And with that, I think it’s time to stop because I’ve strayed very far from both legal and formation advice. I hope you’ve found this helpful and informative. It’s time to get back to the legal side of business planning.
Download our FREE:
Business planning stress test
https://legacy.haimolaw.com/Business-Planning-Stress-Test
Florida business entity comparison chart
https://legacy.haimolaw.com/business-entity-comparison-chart
Additional Resources:
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99 Designs – economical design for your initial IP
https://99designs.qvig.net/n1o0E7
Originally published 10/21/2021. Updated 03/27/2025.
Author:
Barry E. Haimo, Esq.
Haimo Law
Strategic Planning With Purpose®
Email: barry@haimolaw.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/haimolawtv
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