As I mentioned earlier, I am in the process of starting my business.  I have found an amazing number of free resources / extremely inexpensive resources to help me get started.  Since the business is brand new, with little cash flow, the concept of “free / extremely inexpensive” is very attractive.  Here are some that I’ve found so far.  I live in Northern Colorado, so they are from that perspective, but I’m sure there are some similar agencies in your area.

I attended a free seminar on “How to be Your Own Boss” sponsored by the Larimer County Workforce Development Center.  It was pretty basic, mostly focusing how to decide to become an entrepreneur.  I’m long past *that* stage.  It was useful to me, though, as it did give some ideas on how to find contract work (sologig.com, guru.com, elance.com, and Craig’s list).

Another seminar I attended recently was given by the local Small Business Development Center.  The SBDC is a branch of the U.S. Small Business Administration that focuses on assistance to small business owners.  The particular class I took was on accounting — not normally a hugely engrossing topic for me.  This was an excellent class, though, because it focused on accounting from the small business owner’s perspective — federal taxes, state taxes, city taxes, payroll taxes, deductions, etc.  It was mostly useful to help me understand where the tax landmines are, and how to navigate around them.  This class was not free, as it cost me $40.  It was well worth it.

As I find more interesting and inexpensive classes / seminars on starting a business, I’ll be sure to post them here.