How This All Started

My husband and I were losing money from our retirement fund like crazy. (I know - familiar story.) Not that I had that much to lose, but maybe that made it even worse to see that little bit dwindling away. So we decided if we were going to lose it anyway, we'd take a chance on me. I've wanted to do this forever, even when I had a wonderful design job already. We decided on a budget of $3,000, and without too much more thought, away I went.

The first stop was to the county clerk in Manhattan which, of course, involved getting a sitter for the kids. Here goes the budget already! I had done a trademark search for the name I wanted to use http://www.uspto.gov, and it came up clear, so I was pretty confident it would be available as a business name in New York. When I got down there, however, I was told by the orange-haired lady behind the counter that I couldn't use 'Lil' because it wasn't a real word. She proceeded to pull out a worn dictionary and made me look it up! Turns out you can only use something like that for a corporation, not a sole proprietorship. Then she asked me why I'd want to use that anyway - was my name Lil? She ended up being helpful after all when she told me I could use the initials L I L, as long as they stood for real words. We made a notation at the bottom of the page, and $120 later (plus the $4 for the form - picked up from the newspaper kiosk in the lobby) I had my business certificate.

The easy part was coming up with designs. More difficult would be finding fabrics, trims, notions, etc. I knew I wanted to offer T-shirts and other knit items, so I started looking into what I'd need for them. Should I have done this beforehand? Of course, but I was flying by the seat of my pants. (Still am somewhat, for that matter.) I started trying to find a screenprinter to print the T-shirts, but quickly realized I couldn't hope to make the minimum number of shirts they required. I started looking for a heat-press instead. Luckily for me, there was a company in Brooklyn that was downsizing and had listed several items on craigslist, one of which was a heat-press. So the sitter came back (more $ spent indirectly), and I hoofed it out to Brooklyn. I found a straight-knife cutter for $75, and picked up the heat-press for $250. The only drawback, I'd find out later, was that you can't use the heat-press for just any design without having the film from the paper show up on the fabric. Should I have figured this out beforehand? Of course. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) My T-shirt woes were far from over, but more on that later.

The next fun was to get my certificate of authority from New York's Department of Taxation and Finance, so I could collect sales tax - even though nothing I'm selling will be eligible for the tax. Of course I didn't know this was what I needed; I was looking for a resale number so I could purchase fabrics wholesale. To say their web site is a tad confusing is an understatement, but finally, after the fourth try, I reached a live person who could actually tell me what I needed to do. Here's the deal: once you get the certificate of authority, you enter the number into the resale form, print it out, and you're all set. So at this point I'll end this post, and pick up again tomorrow. For now, it's back to work (and taking care of my kids, two of whom have the flu).