A weekend of setup prevents a year of admin pain. Work top to bottom.

Legal & identity (half a day)

• [ ] Choose structure (sole proprietor is fine to start in most places; LLC when revenue justifies it)
• [ ] Register the name if required locally
• [ ] Check whether your city/state needs a business license

Money (one hour)

• [ ] Separate business bank account — non-negotiable from day one
• [ ] Bookkeeping tool chosen (even a simple ledger; export monthly)
• [ ] Payment path decided: Stripe, Gumroad, or platform-native
• [ ] Set aside 25–30% of every payment for taxes automatically

Online presence (one afternoon)

• [ ] Domain bought (your name is fine at the start)
• [ ] One page live: who you help, what you do, how to contact you
• [ ] Professional email on that domain — Gmail-only costs deals

Tool stack (minimal, see the full guide)

• [ ] Email platform with automation (free-tier comparison here)
• [ ] LLM subscription for drafting everything
• [ ] Password manager + 2FA everywhere
• [ ] VPN if you work from shared networks

Deliberately missing: logo, business cards, incorporation fees, and any tool you can't name the task for. Add those when revenue asks.