The Online Business Startup Checklist

The wheels are in motion on a new online business startup (ThemeJam) that I’m involved in.  You can read the full details about ThemeJam here, but in this post I’d like to share some thoughts about the very first week of operations.

This is the pre-pre-launch to-do list.  Action items that come before website development, before logo design, before the marketing push.  These are the first steps to establishing the online presence for your business:

Domain

Obvious.  A great domain is crucial. Something short, easy to spell, easy to remember, and no dashes.  .com is ideal.  Don’t settle for a .net or .org if there is already an established company on the .com.

Determining your company name and registering your domain should be your combined first step.  Don’t settle on a name for your business unless that domain is available.

Twitter

This was my immediate 2nd step after grabbing the domain.  Twitter names are now a hot commodity, so you must reserve yours ASAP.  I’d even go so far as to suggest checking the Twitter name availability before finalizing your domain name.

Facebook

Your online business will need a Facebook presence, a.k.a. a Facebook fan page.  Although you won’t be able to register your Facebook vanity URL (facebook.com/YourBusiness) right away because they require you to have 100+ fans, it’s still a good idea to get your fan page up sooner rather than later.

WordPress blog

Having a blog is a crucial tool for any effective web company.  Don’t wait until your hard-launch to start it.  Fire up your wordpress blog during week 1, even if you’re not driving traffic to it yet.  During this pre-launch period, you can populate the site with searchable content, set the groundwork for keyword optimization, and develop a blogging style for your new company.

I also suggest signing up for Feedburner right from day 1 of your blog.  That way all of your RSS subscribers are contained in a single optimized feed, rather than split between the default WordPress feed and Feedburner.

Analytics

You’ll want to start tracking your visitors right from the start.  Make sure you set up a Google Analytics account and drop the code in the footer of your website/blog.  Again, even if you’re not officially launched yet, you might receive hits from soft-launch promotions, keyword searches, etc.  It’s always good to be in the know on these things.

Don’t wait until launch day to activate analytics!  Remember it will take 24 hours for stats to begin recording.

Email

Another obvious step, but a very important one during your first week.  Set up and test your company email account(s) as this will be your primary method of official communication.  I’d also recommend setting up Google apps so that you can use Gmail for your domain email account(s).

Basecamp

This might not be for everyone.  But you should establish some kind of hub for internal communication among your partners and/or employees.  We’re utlizing the project management web-app, basecamp for our startup.  It’s the perfect tool for collaborating on company planning, product development, to-do lists, etc.

We’ve also been utlizing Google Documents a great deal for the massive amount of business planning involved in a new online startup.

What am I missing?

Any suggestions for other steps to take during the first week of operations for your online business startup?  I’d love to hear what ya got!