How ".asice" can save me from bankruptcy 😳 - Issue #18
Hey y'all 👋
Learning this week: Karma is a bitch ⚽️
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This week:
💾 How a simple ".asice" file can protect you from personal liability
📺 Why YouTube videos are perfect to document your knowledge
How a Simple Digital File Protects Me from Personal Liability 😳
It took me seven days to incorporate my e-learning business as an Estonian private limited company (in Estonian: OÜ, "osaühing").
Hands-on time was more like 50 minutes over the span of a week.
The benefit of a limited company is that you as a founder are not personally liable.
Main Learning: Don't Forget the Share Capital Contribution
When starting an Estonian company you have to budget 190 euros for the incorporation process and 2.500 euros as share capital.
If you own 100% of the company you have to contribute all 2.5k
⚡️ Important: As long as the share contribution is not paid, the shareholders are personally liable.
In reality, the setup steps look as follows:
- Sign up with yourcompanyinestonia.com
- Pay 190 euros
- Fill out company details and owner/board member details
- Sign up for an online banking account (I went with Wise - formerly Transferwise)
- Pay share capital to your corporate bank account
- Ask for a transaction certificate from your bank
- Upload the transaction certificate in the Estonian company registry website
The last three steps are well documented here.
The important detail here is that the certificate has to be "digitally signed and in the Estonian language".
When I read this sentence I was sure I would [a] have to explain to my bank what this certificate is and [b] on top have to get a notarized translator to translate from English into Estonian 🤦♂️
Luckily, Wise was founded by Estonian founders (i.e. Skype Mafia).
The only thing I had to do was to ask in the customer service chat (waiting time ~5 minutes).
The agent immediately knew what I needed and sent me the .asice file within the hour.
As of today:
- Company in Estonia: ✅
- Limited Liability: ✅
Video Killing My Non-Existing Radio Star ⭐️
Documentation FTW: Never Answer Anything Twice
One of the golden rules of remote team documentation is to "answer with a link".
This means instead of writing an answer in slack or 'hopping on a quick call' you can document it in a wiki or video instead and just share access to the documentation.
Video is a great channel for documentation:
- Fidelity: You have video, audio, and possibly text
- Base Content: You can repurpose many things from a video: [1] take audio file only and upload in a podcasting app, [2] use transcription as the basis for blog posts, etc.
Take #62: How to Use Video for Documentation
Last week I recorded and edited my first proper YouTube video.
Why did I do it?
I kept having the same conversation over and over again where I would explain how I was using Luma + Zoom + Notion to create my remote workshops.
People really liked the setup and said I should write about it.
I did a video with the full shebang instead:
- Chapters
- Timestamps
- Thumbnail
- Background music
- B-roll overlays
~ 40 minutes of recording and then a couple of hours of editing.
Lot of work but totally worth it (a bit more details below).
Let me know what you think 👇
Not perfect but hey, you gotta start somewhere :)
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Let me know what's going on in your life!
Stay happy, stay healthy 🙌
Art