Chapter 4: Startup Essentials
After you get your business bank account sorted, you’re going to want to get a domain name and company emails (name@company.com). This isn’t completely necessary, but it helps a lot with credibility as you’re getting started. Even if you don’t have a website yet (which is fine), having the custom emails with your name and domain is fairly cheap and generally worth doing.
First, create a Gmail account for your company (company@gmail.com). You’ll use this account to register the domain when you purchase it and for the Google Workspace account. This is also a great time to get some social media accounts for your company. Since you know what it’s going to be called, check out Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok and see if you can get @yourCompany on each platform. You can use the gmail you just created to set up the accounts, and even if you don’t use them for a while, it’s good to have the names reserved.
For the domain, you want something simple, like company.com. You can purchase this domain from literally anywhere, it doesn’t matter. If you know you’re eventually going to use squarespace or shopify for the website, then go ahead and purchase the domain from there. However it really doesn’t matter, since domains can be programmed to point to any website. Squarespace, Shopify, Google, or Godaddy are all simple options, and will allow you to see what versions of your company domain are available if the basic company.com option is taken.
After you have the domain, you’re going to want to create an account on Google Workspace. This will allow you to create your custom emails with attached Google Drive accounts for each user. Google Workspace pricing starts at $6/user/month, but they’ll likely try and force you to a more expensive subscription tier out the gate. Watch the video below for a step-by-step walkthrough of setting all this up, including how to downgrade your Google Workspace to the cheapest option.