You see, my mom had always told me that my grandpa Al, my mom’s dad, was my guardian angel.  So when I was 8 years old I drew a bunch of guardian angels.  Each angel represents one of my cousins or friend of mine from school.  The one with the stripped shirt and pink skirt is named Ally after me.  My mom loved the drawings so much, we talked about what we could do with them so that other kids might find some comfort from them.

We thought about t-shirts, posters and mugs.  But when my mom showed them to a friend, she said that these would make great dolls.  So we decided we were going to take my drawings and turn them into dolls, so that other kids could feel like they had their own guardian angel watching over them.  The doll could be there to have their back and help them feel better when they were sad.

This was the point were we knew we were going to start a real business.  When you start a business, there is whole bunch of stuff you need to do with the government.  The city makes you get a business license and the state makes you get a reseller permit.  But before you can do any of that, you need to come up with a name.  We first wanted to call the business “Ally’s Angels”.  One of the first things you do when you come up with a name is buy the domain name.  That’s the thing you type into a web browser to go to a web site.  Someone already bought allysangels.com.  Then we checkedAllysLittleAngels.com and it was available.  We did an internet search for Ally’s Little Angels and nothing came up, so we quickly bought the domain name.  It’s always good to do a google search for a name to make sure someone isn’t already using it.

Once you have your name you need to become an official business.   There is a place online called LegalZoom.com that can help you do this.  There are several kinds of businesses, but my dad said it would be best if we became a corporation.  He filled out the paperwork online, paid some money, and after a few weeks we were an official business.  Next we got a bank account, a city business license (that costs money) and a state reseller permit.  The reseller permit is for sales tax.  It doesn’t cost money but it costs everyone else money. You know how every time you buy something it always costs more than the price tag says?  That’s because of the sales tax.  Whenever you sell something you have to charge sales tax and send that money to the government.  If you don’t do all of this stuff you get in big trouble.