by Brandon |
Last Updated: September 3, 2021 Have you ever wanted to start a new business but got stuck on the name for hours, maybe days. UGH I can’t find a good business name, or wow, all the ideas I came up with have already been taken. I know it’s happened to me a lot. So I’m going to show you how to get a useable business name in just 5 minutes with AI doing most of the work.
Generating a Business Name You Can Actually Use
Disclaimer: This is not intended as financial or business advice. You should consult a lawyer or CPA before listening to anything I say. Also, my experience is based on registering and operating a business in Florida. The guide will follow my experiences with that, but should be quite similar state to state. Feel free to reach out to me if anything seems a lot different and I will help you out as best I can. And yeah, I may have included some affiliate links for what I recommend. It doesn’t change the price for you and I get a tiny piece of the sale.
In before someone says tHiS cOuLD be DoNe aS a SolE ProPriEtOr – yeah, but there is a lot of liability inherent in that. Something I am not willing to risk. Also something I would NEVER recommend to anyone. Even though this site is about side hustles, you still want to do things right and protect yourself.
If you take this seriously, there is A LOT of money to be made and you want to set it up properly from the start, which will also make it easier to sell the business later if you want.
So, first things first, let’s get you set up as a business.
What’s in a name? Do you have one in mind for your new business?
When I start a business I’m looking for the following, in this order to select a name:
- Can I get a dot com address? Check Namecheap.com to see if you can get the dot com address. Most of the rest will fall in line if you complete this.
- Check social media accounts. Can I get @businessname ?
- Check my state’s division of corporations. Unless it is a very generic name it should be available if I get this far on the list.
If you don’t have a name already, head over to Namelix.com and use AI to generate your business name for you. Seriously.
Hit Generate and then I selected all the letter lengths as this will probably be the best bet to get a useable name, but you can play around with this.
For Name Style this will be a matter of personal preference, I picked “Multiple words” after selecting some other because I felt the best results came from here.
Click Generate again. Let the AI do it’s magic. It will only take a minute or so.
They’re going to show you some names that are pretty good up at the top, but are premium domains, meaning they’re like $2000 or so. Scratch that, scroll down below and look at the other names.
I found one I’m pretty happy with…
I checked on over at Namecheap.com and sellingwave.com was available for $8. Right on! The name is kinda catchy. Feel free to register this if it’s still available when you read this. Just drop a comment below to let me know if you did!
I also checked twitter and the name is available there also. Remember Twitter’s username limit is 15 characters so keep that in mind – you want a business name with less letters than that.
One last check would be my state’s division of corporation site, in this case for Florida it is sunbiz.org and yeah, we’re good there too.
So we have all the makings of a new business name, SELLING WAVE, and it took us less than 5 minutes to find. (It literally took me longer to write about it than to find it.)
Your Next Steps
- Buy the domain name if you haven’t already.
- Get a hosting account from Bluehost.com (cheapest, but also a good beginner host) to setup email for yourself like yourname@sellingwave.com
- Go get the twitter, instagram, facebook account handles, and any other social site you think you’ll use. This is less critical if you’re only going to sell on Amazon and aren’t interested in building a brand around the name.
- Get a UPS box. You can get an actual street looking address. State registrations do not want you to use a PO Box. UPS and Fedex cannot deliver to a PO Box. This will all be very important later as you set up accounts and have to get things shipped to you. Yes, it is more expensive than a PO Box. Roughly $20 a month for a small box is all you need. You probably spend more on streaming services that you forgot about.
- Talk to a CPA or Lawyer. Register the business with your state. (Note: it doesn’t necessarily have to be the state you live in. Florida is fairly business friendly so I used them. Wyoming and New Mexico are good for privacy options. Again, discuss your options with a qualified professional. I’m just a guy on the internet.)
- Decide with your CPA which way you want to set up your corporation. Most will go with an LLC or S-corp. I personally do all my businesses in S-corps because in my opinion it is better for me. But this is a situation that will vary from person to person so again, not to beat a dead horse, but just consult with a CPA – you’re going to want one to do your taxes anyway. A good CPA will save you money in taxes you (don’t) pay far beyond what they charge.
- Get an FEIN number AFTER you get confirmed with your state registration. Official IRS site here. This is pretty much an instant process.
- Get a Sales Tax Exemption Certificate or Resale Certificate. In my state, Florida, the registration is here.
- Sign up with a bank and get a business bank account. Whatever bank you want to use…I think BBT (or Truist now) and PNC allow you to sign up completely online.
- Follow my other side hustles to make some MONEY.