Web Hosting

I've been looking into getting a real web site. This means two things. First, I will need a name. You have to register a domain name before you can have a web site. Places like GoDaddy will register your domain for $1.99 for the first year, but when you want to renew it the next year then the price goes way up. The second thing you need is to find someone to host the domain for you. A web hosting service is a place that has a lot of computers and your domain points to their servers (servers are the computers that your web pages are on). Once the domain name points to the right spot then you can log into the host's servers and upload your web pages, graphics, and other things like videos or documents. If everything is named correctly and the links all work then when someone types in the address to your domain name they should find a nice web site.

The problem is that there are many hosting services and deciding on which one is best can take a lot of time. There are web sites that do reviews for web hosting services. If you Google "Web Hosting" you should find these sites. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I do not want to use any of the so-called free web hosting sites. These free sites are filled with advertisements and their services are usually unreliable. If you want a site that looks professional then you will have to pay for it.

It is possible to host your web site on your own computer in your house, but I wouldn't recommend this. First of all the domain has to point to a specific IP address. And IP address looks like a bunch of numbers like this: 74.125.65.99. If you type this number into the address bar of your web browser you should get Google. As you can see, it's easier to remember www.google.com than 74.125.65.99. But your computer at home probably does not have the same IP address all the time. Since your Internet service provider (such as Comcast) changes your IP address you can't host your own web site with a nice name like www.mywebsite.com. It is possible to get around this using a DNS forwarding service, but your name options are limited. I use one of these myself, but not for important stuff like a business web site since I turn my computer off every night when I got to bed. That means that my web site is down much of the time.

So I'm stuck paying for a web hosting service. From my own research I'm currently thinking about using InMotion Hosting or Blue Host or maybe iPage. iPage seems cheap at only $3.50 per month, but when you go to sign up with them they want to add on a lot of extra services and the price jumps up quite a bit. InMotion offers a range of options from $3.00/mo to $17.95/mo, but the service I'm considering costs $7.95/mo. But for that $7.95 you get some services that cost extra at iPage, so the difference in pricing isn't that much. Blue Host is $6.95/mo and is really similar to InMotion in terms of services and pricing. The problem comes when you look at the reviews. With every hosting service there are people who love it and people who hate it. And you can't always trust the review sites because when you click on the link and go sign up with the site you prefer the review site gets some money from the hosting service. That means that I'm a little suspicious of some of these reviewers. Who knows, maybe they are recommending one site over another because they make more money by recommending that site.

Well, I guess you'll know which hosting service I choose when you suddenly find my site somewhere else.

Cleaning a Hardwood Floor with Tea

You might be surprised to find that a lot of people recommend cleaning hardwood floors with plain black tea. This actually works because of the tannic acid in the tea. It's simple, cheap, green, and effective.

The steps are fairly simple:

• Make a pot of tea with two tea bags. 
• A quart of water should be just about right. 
• You don't have to use high quality tea, the cheap stuff will work just fine. 
• But don't use the instant stuff. 
• Let the tea cool down until it's warm or at room temperature. 
• You can discard the tea bags. 
• Clean the floor the way you normally would, but using tea instead of your normal cleaning solution.

Remember, wood floors don't like lots of water and that goes for tea water too.

If you are like me you will probably want to use a damp sponge mop, but the best way to clean a wood floor is to get down on your hands and knees and scrub it with a damp cloth. Make sure to rinse the rag out with clean water periodically and then dip it in the tea and squeeze it out before proceeding.

Books About Starting a Cleaning Service

There are a couple of publishers that have a series of books about how to start your own business. Each book in the series covers a different business and they are written by people who have actually done it. I have two that I read: Start Your Own Cleaning Service (Start Your Own …) by Jacquelyn Lynn and How to Start a Home-Based Housecleaning Business, 2nd (Home-Based Business Series) by Melinda Morse and Laura Jorstad.

Start Your Own Cleaning Service is published by the same people who run http://www.entrepreneur.com/ and publish Entrepreneur Magazine. I like the web site. They have a lot of good information. It covers the cleaning business in general, gives you the options of how to get into the business, and then covers the major cleaning businesses: maid service, janitorial service, and carpet and upholstery cleaning services. Then it talks about some other specialized types of cleaning businesses such as window or pressure washing. Then the book turns to the business side of things: business plans, legal structure, accounting, employees, purchasing, equipment, and marketing. The very last chapter is filled with practical advice. All-in-all it's an informative look at the cleaning business for someone with no experience running their own business. However, the business chapters are so basic that you will probably need to read other more targeted books to get more complete information. I'm not sure I would be able to decide on a legal structure or be able to set up my accounting based on the little information contained in this book. But these chapters are still valuable in that they bring these issues to your attention and give you a basic overview of them. And the book doesn't actually tell you how to clean anything.

How to Start a Home-Based Housecleaning Business is very similar to Start Your Own Cleaning Service. It covers many of the same subjects such as getting a business license, record keeping, taxes, and advertising. But it does have some additional information such as screening clients, some basic information on how to clean, and developing a service manual. As the title indicates, this book is specifically aimed at the housecleaning business (maid service), and does not cover areas that the other book deals with such as janitorial services and carpet cleaning.

I think both of these books are worth reading before going into the cleaning business. They take different perspectives and you will learn things from one book that are not covered by the other. But neither book is really complete. To get a better understanding of cleaning itself you might want to also read a book like 2001 Amazing Cleaning Secrets. This book is mostly an encyclopedia of how to clean almost anything. You just look up the item you are interested in and find what methods and/or chemicals you would use to clean that item. It also has a chapter with a nicely designed housecleaning system. This system will help you plan your attack so that you can clean quickly and efficiently.

You will also need more information about the business side of things. NOLO press (http://www.nolo.com/) has a plethora of books about the legal issues surrounding small businesses. You could also read Small Business For Dummies or other similar books. These books deal with many of the same issues that are in the cleaning business books, but they go more in depth. There are other more specific books dealing with marketing and bookkeeping that you will need to read to really get the best advice.

Hydrogen Peroxide

In my last post we talked about two of the most popular household green cleaning agents: baking soda and vinegar. Today I want to talk a little about another popular cleaner that you might have at home. Hydrogen peroxide's formula looks a lot like the formula for water. Water is H₂O and hydrogen peroxide is H₂O₂. That means that water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom while hydrogen peroxide has two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms. In fact, when two hydrogen peroxide molecules breaks down they turn into two water molecules and one oxygen molecule. The formula looks like this: 2 H₂O₂ → 2 H₂O + O_2. 

You can't get more environmentally friendly than water and oxygen. But that does not necessarily mean that hydrogen peroxide is safe. In fact, before it breaks down it can be quite harmful. It is an oxidizing and bleaching agent. Hydrogen peroxide is a stronger oxidizer than chlorine.

If you've ever bought non-chlorine bleach to do your laundry then you have probably used hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning agent. In most grocery stores you can buy hydrogen peroxide in that familiar brown bottle with the white cap. Normally you will find it with just 3% hydrogen peroxide. But if you look around you can find it in 12% solution (Hydrogen Peroxide 12% 16 Ounces) or even 30% (Hydrogen Peroxide 30% (ACS) [ 1 Ea.]) or more.

The normal bottle of 3% is often recommended as a mouthwash or you can buy it formulated and marketed as a mouthwash (Mouthwash-Hydrogen Peroxide - 16 oz. - Liquid). I would recommend that you never use a solution of more than 3% as a mouthwash or for washing your teeth. You can make a toothpaste out of it if you mix it with baking soda to make a paste. It apparently works as a teeth whitener. I would recommend, however, that you also brush with a toothpaste with floride in it after you use the hydrogen peroxide. This is because hydrogen peroxide's oxidizing process can weaken the enamel on your teeth. Fluorine has just the opposite chemical effect. You can read more about this in the Wikipedia article Oxidizing agent.

There's a nice web site that talks extensively about using hydrogen peroxide as a cleaner. Amazingly enough, it's called http://www.using-hydrogen-peroxide.com/. You can get a lot more information from them than I am going to cover in this post. For that matter, you can do your own Google search and find a number of articles on it. The main reason I want to address post my own article on it is to point out that a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner is what I use for most of my own cleaning. I use a professional concentrated cleaner called Clean By Peroxy. I buy mine at a janitorial supply in Chattanooga called Advanced Paper Company, but you can order it over the internet at places like Green Chemical Solutions. It seems expensive but it's highly concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Clean By Peroxy is Green Seal certified.

But there are also plenty of other hydrogen peroxide based cleaners that you can probably get at your local grocery store or hardware store. You can usually spot them because they will have the word OXY in the name somewhere. Or you can just stick with that bottle of hydrogen peroxide antiseptic in your bathroom.

Since hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent you can use it for whitening and brightening most of the same things you might use bleach for. You can use it as a general cleanser for your kitchen, it can get stains out of carpets or off floors or out of your clothes. Of couse, you will always want to check it first on an inconspicuous spot to make sure the item you are applying it to will not be discolored by the hydrogen peroxide.

The only environmental reservation I have about hydrogen peroxide is in its manufacture. I'm not sure if the process of making it has any harmful environmental impact. If I find out more about this I'll give you an update. Or if anyone who reads this article knows more about the issue please let me know.

Two Popular Green Cleaning Supplies

When you read books about environmentally friendly cleaning techniques or search the web, you often come across two popular products: Vinegar and Baking Soda. You may already have both of these common household products in your house.

On the pH scale, baking soda is on the opposite side of vinegar. Vinegar is slightly acidic while baking soda is a base. Water is considered neutral with a pH of 7, vinegar is acidic with a pH of 2.4 and baking soda is on the other side of the scale at 8.4. So as you can see, while neither vinegar nor baking soda are strong, they do have different qualities.

VINEGAR: Since vinegar is slightly acidic, this means it is good for getting rid of hard water spots in your shower, but there are some things you would not want to clean with an acid. You need to make sure you know when and where to spray it. You might also find the smell to be somewhat of a problem. I used to spray straight white distilled vinegar in my shower and my wife would complain that the bathroom smelled like ketchup. Although the smell will go away after a few hours, if you buy a little lemon oil and add a few drops to the vinegar you might find the smell less offensive.

BAKING SODA: You've probably heard that baking soda is good for getting rid of smells in the refrigerator. It can also be used in other places where smells accumulate. Anything with a high pH is also a whitening agent. By comparison, bleach has a pH of about 13. This means that while it can be used to get stains out of your carpet or off your counter, you should be careful and test it first in an inconspicuous spot because it could also discolor that nice rug of yours.

Since vinegar smells bad and baking soda gets rid of bad smells, couldn't you just combine them and get a super cleaning agent that smells nice? Well, not really. The cleaning power of each of these substances has to do with their pH. But if you combine them the pH becomes neutral, meaning that it would clean just like water does. This isn't bad, but it might not be what you are looking for. However, there are a few instances where you might want to combine them. You see, if you put baking soda in vinegar it will bubble up. Some people recommend pouring baking soda into a clogged drain and then put vinegar into it. The bubbling might help break up the clog. Next time you have a clog you might give it a try. Although I haven't had much success with this tip, it's definitely worth trying before you go dumping lye into your drain.

Tracking Expenses

A small business owner needs to track expenses. Especially those that can be deducted on his/her taxes. The IRS has all kinds of rules about what can and cannot be deducted. You should probably talk to your accountant to make sure you're doing it right. But if you want, you can also read the IRS Form 535. It can be very helpful. For instance, it says that "When you go into business, treat all costs you had to get your business started as capital expenses." I spent a lot of time reading books and travelling around learning how to start a business. I need to track down these costs and add them to my expenses spreadsheet.

Yes, I'm using a spreadsheet to keep my expense records. There are better methods for keeping track of the accounting aspects of your business than a simple spreadsheet but I'm trying to bootstrap my business so, for the moment, I'm keeping expenses low by delaying this important purchase. 
Many small businesses use QuickBooks for their record keeping. It's quite powerful, and reasonably priced compared to some other options. There's also a QuickBooks Simple Start 2010 option that costs even less. Unfortunately for me I can't use the Simple Start version because I'm using a Mac. There is a version for the Mac called QuickBooks 2010 for Mac, so there's a good chance that that's the version I'll eventually buy. But beware, powerful programs are often quite complicated and you will have to read a book or take classes in order to use Quickbooks to it's full potential.

However, there is another option that I've been thinking about and that's FileMaker Pro 11. I was also thinking about Bento 3but I think FileMaker Pro would make a better option for me. Bento is quite a bit cheaper than FileMaker, but it has limited functionality. Bento is made by FileMaker, so it's a good product, but it does not have the power of FileMaker. And even if Bento would suffice for a new business, it isn't robust enough to grow with your company. In reality, I think Bento hardly offers anything that I can't already do with a spreadsheet. The biggest drawback is that there isn't any way to do reports in Bento. You can fake it, but FileMaker is a real powerhouse. Your business could grow to a multi-million dollar company with thousands of employees and FileMaker would still be robust enough to keep up. The biggest draw back is, like I said about QuickBooks, there is a huge learning curve for database development with FileMaker. You may end up having to pay someone to develop your databases. Bento, on the other hand, is very easy to learn and use.

For now I'll just keep using my spreadsheet. At least I will be able to import the data into whatever database software I end up buying.

Mileage

The miles I drive for business related travel, now that I'm a business owner, can be deducted from my taxes. But you have to keep track of your mileage in order to take the deduction. For now, all I've done is set up a spreadsheet to track my mileage. As far as I can tell, I just need to note the date, the starting miles and ending miles and the business purpose. I have the spreadsheet calculate the miles I've driven by subtracting the ending miles from the start miles. Then I also have it calculate the actual cash value of the deduction. For 2010 the IRS has declared that business mileage can be deducted at $0.50 per mile. 

There is also a different method that one can use for the deduction, but since I am using the same vehicle for personal as well as business travel, I've decided to just use the mileage method. I just enter the miles into my iPod Touch and then transfer the data into a spreadsheet when I get home. But there are easier ways to do it. I could buy a mileage app in the iTunes store. But for now I'm just using a spreadsheet. I can access the spreadsheet from my iPod Touch whenever I have Internet access, but that's now always available. During those times I just jot a note down in Notepad and then put the info into the spreadsheet when I get home. 

Insurance

Today has been a busy day. After leaving the bank I went to see my insurance agent. I had talked to him yesterday about getting liability insurance for my new business. Since the legal form of my business is sole proprietor, and not a limited liability company or a corporation, I thought it was especially important to have proper insurance. This is my first big expense for my business, but as it turns out it's less than $60 per month for my policy. It also gave me a chance to use one of my new business checks. It doesn't take long for a business to start costing you money. But so far it hasn't been too bad. Total cost of doing business so far, less than $700.

Since I've got my business license I have also started to keep track of the mileage I'm putting on my car for business purposes. Not that I needed it for the insurance, since my insurance agent is just across the street and my bank is just half a block away. I like walking whenever I can. In fact, the people at the bank know me as the guy who walks there whenever I need anything. They were quite shocked when I came in from the rain soaking wet a couple months ago. I want to keep my carbon footprint as small as possible and I plan to keep my cleaning business low impact.

Setting Up a Bank Account

I took my business licenses from the county and the city and went to the bank. I figured that I needed to open a business checking account. They did want to see my business licenses so I'm glad I took those with me. I thought a business account would cost money, but they had a free checking account, so that was great. It's the same bank I do my personal checking and saving with, so I already knew them and since it's a small bank they already know me. They told me that I did not have to get those big business checks if I didn't want to, so I went with the same kind of checks I use for my personal account. I want to do all my record keeping with my computer, so I figure I don't really need special checks.

Things are moving along just fine.

Seeing the Small Business Development Center

This morning I went to the Tennessee Small Business Development Center. I think it's run by Chattanooga State Community College in conjunction with the Small Business Administration. There are books with helpful information, computers, and most of all they have people you can talk to about starting and running a small business. They were very helpful. I went down and talked to a counselor this morning and asked him if I was doing everything correctly. Basically he said I was doing fine. I've talked to them before, so this wasn't my first time. We also talked about record keeping, software that can be used, and marketing. How do I actually plan to grow my business? They always want you to do a business plan, which I've already done. I would highly recommend using them.

Getting a Business License

I went down to the Hamilton County Clerk today to get a business license. It's located at 625 Georgia Avenue in downtown Chattanooga. I basically know where this is, so I drove down the 24 to Market Street. As you are going down Market there is a little one way street that veers off to the right. This is the beginning of Georgia Ave. So I turned on this. After a block or two I saw some big building so I found a parking spot, put three quarters into the meter and started walking. Even if this big building isn't the one I'm looking for, my building should be close by. That's what I figured anyway. But as it turns out, I was parked around 11th Street. So I had to walk up hill for five blocks to get to the courthouse. When I tried to enter I had to remove everything from my pockets. To my surprise I had a pocket knife on me. So I had to walk all the way back to my car. I decided at that point to just move the car up the hill closer to the courthouse. I did and fed another 75 cents into the meter.

Once I got into the building, getting the license was rather painless. Filled out a form, but didn't know what classification to choose for my business. The very nice and helpful person at the desk told me to choose class 3. I wasn't sure if I had to fill out a special form for a fictitious business name (also known as a DBA), but he said I could just write whatever name I wanted on this form, so I chose Demesser Cleaning Services. Actually, I had already decided to use this name and I did prior research to make sure the name was available. But I didn't have to certify that it was available. He also told me, since my business will operate inside Chattanooga city limits, that I needed to get a license from the city, and that I needed to go down to 11th Street. So after paying my $15 fee I got my license and left.

But as you may have already noticed. I had to go down the hill again back to where I had parked earlier. Since I had plenty of time left on my meter (the whole process to get the license took less than 20 minutes), I decided to walk. I had a nice walk down the street, made it to City Hall and went inside. I looked to the left and there was a security guard. I looked to the right and there were some counters with people who looked like they were waiting to assist me. So I went right and told them I needed a business license. Fifteen minutes later, and after another $15 payment, I got my business tax license, left and walked back up the hill.

That was rather painless and not too expensive.