LaShara Lashawn

I just want to start with giving a warm middle finger and a warm hug to #LLCTwitter. Yes, just like that a big finger followed by a long hug. You may be thinking wow who knocked over her cereal bowl this morning? I recently started a Juice business, and it has been exciting there has been many times where I didn’t want to fill orders, post on social media, adjust prices, do drop offs and so much other time-consuming task related to the business. What is so crazy is that at time I absolutely didn’t do anything, for months I didn’t make a single juice for a paying customer.

Now back to my frustration. When I launched Too Juiced it was during the pandemic and we were getting those stimulus checks which were a great help to many people, myself included. Everyone was talking about what they were going to do with their money, telling people what to do with their money, shaming others for collecting unemployment (EDD), then there was #LLCTWITTER. These were some real & fake entrepreneur gurus in my opinion who were aggressively encouraging people to get a LLC. Now prior to the pandemic I recall talking to my co worker about what else I could do on the side of my full-time job.

Why I seemed to crave more work so much I really wish I knew. I do but I’ll get into that another day. At the time I didn’t know what I could do I started to think I had no other talents to give contribute to society or make me any income. After a friend’s mom found out that I was juicing and was willing to pay me I started Too Juiced. After seeing how many people jumped on the juice, I wanted to take it to the next level, and you know who was there to apply all the pressure? Social media.  

I heard of an LLC, but I really didn’t know what it was, what it meant or why I really needed it but according to what seemed to feel like everyone, I needed it.  An LLC is a Limited Liability Company license existing separately from its owner. Sounds great, yes sign me up! But no so fast because the cost!!!! Like the fees, the application fees, the permits and the just because permits. No one talks about all of that. There are still some licenses I must get and have delayed getting because of the cost. Oh, let’s not forget uncle Sam wants his cut along with his nosey aunt IRS. You don’t want to play with them at all.

Therefore, it is important to have this information on starting a business available and accessible to everyone. Now there are a lot of these master classes and online courses and I have listened in on some and you really have to vet who is presenting because they make it all sound so easy and make it all about social media presence and to be honest the best thing you can do is get an advisor, someone who has actually done it before to walk with you through the steps. In my experience thus far, I have put all the logistics to the side a few times. It is hard to start a business when you are scratching to survive yourself and you lack guidance because what you should be saving or giving to the business you are using to finance your day-to-day lifestyle and that’s counterproductive.

Discipline and patience are so key with entrepreneurship. I am still working on this, now I am getting in the pocket with consistency and growing my customer base and that can come easy to many of us, but the backend work is a whole different world. Given many of my middle to low-income urban raised black peer have no real foreknowledge about business opposed to knowing how to hustle which is a different mindset yet it is an asset to the overall process. I am grateful for #LLCTWITTER because it did encourage me to get curious and want to legitimize my business. I am learning a lot and it is fun, however I can’t wait to be able to pay someone to do all of this for me. I have been fortunate to find some free guidance and get tips from other business owners which has been a blessing. To all my current and future entrepreneurs get all the details first, never take any twitter post too serious and remember to be influenced by good things even if it was a twitter post encouraging people to legalize their business.

-social media made me do it.

Check out http://officiallytoojuiced.com