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Starting your own design businesss is a good idea, but planning before you start will save you a lot of pain down the road.

You’ll need a pretty sharp portfolio and a website. I might suggest focusing on a certain area or market — for example, do you want to do identity? web? packaging? advertising? or D, all of the above?

The real key to generating cash flow and being self-sufficient is being able to sell yourself. Make connections.

If it’s a little scary to jump in head first, you might try contacting all of the design firms in the area for work. Firms and agencies like to outsource production and smaller design jobs to freelancers, and it’s a good way for you to earn a little cash while you build up your own client base.

If you are versatile, meaning you can do both print and web, you will be able to offer a better value to your clients.

A couple of books that have helped me in the past are:

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Start Your Own Business
This book gives you practical advice on starting your business. EXTREMELY thorough. It gave me more info than I needed to start my business.

You may have read Rich Dad Poor Dad, the NYTimes bestseller, but I actually found one of Robert Kiyosaki’s other books more helpful. It’s called, "Before You Quit Your Job"
This book, I warn you is a little more theoretical about overall business, but it helps as a supplement to simply providing design and marketing service. It talks about process, systems, failure and success, and it has good tips on copyrighting, accounting, and retaining your trade dress.

A business plan isn’t as critical for a design business, but it’s certainly a good exercise to go through. It will tell you what you need to make to stay alive, what your financial goals are for the year, some Plan B’s if business goes bad, and other important issues. Some other things you might need:

A business license, maybe a fictitious business name, depending (or you can work under your own name and skip this).

Get yourself some basic accounting software like Quickbooks or MS Money. If you’re not comfortable you might try a basic accounts book from Staples, around $10/ea. It’s a good idea to separate your business expenses and receipts into a separate file folder for tax purposes. (You may even need a separate bank account, that helps too.)

That’s all I can think of right now, but if you have any specific questions, feel free to email me. Good luck!

cant say i have…goodluck though