Home business basics: the SBA and IRS
A friendly orientation to two free, official resources every home-business owner should know — the SBA and the IRS — and what each is actually good for.
The Home Biz Guru
Home business, minus the hype.
No secrets, no countdowns, no screenshots of somebody's dashboard. Just the boring systems, checklists, and schedules that keep a small home business running week after week. We are, cheerfully, allergic to the word guru.
Educational only. We are not a business opportunity and we do not sell income — results vary, and most of the work is unglamorous.
The boring stuff is the whole job.
01
Systems over secrets
Nobody is hiding the one trick. The people who keep a home business going have a handful of small routines they actually follow. We write those down.
02
Schedules you can keep
A realistic week beats a heroic one you abandon by Wednesday. We favor plans that survive a sick kid, a slow month, and a dog that needs walking.
03
A working scam detector
The home-business world is full of pitches. We keep a plain list of red flags so a bad offer stands out before it costs you anything.
Start here.
All guides →Work-from-home scam red flags
A plain list of the warning signs that a work-from-home offer is a scam — the pressure, the promises, the upfront fees — from someone who's been burned enough to know.
A realistic work-from-home schedule
How to build a home-work schedule that survives real life — sick kids, slow days, and a dog that needs walking — instead of a heroic one you abandon by Wednesday.
Keeping business and personal money separate
Why mixing your business and personal money causes headaches, and the simple, boring setup that keeps them apart from day one.
Things nobody tells you about starting from home
The unglamorous realities of working from home that the hype skips: the loneliness, the blurry hours, the slow start, and why none of it means you're failing.
Boring systems that keep a home business running
The unglamorous routines — a place for everything, a simple follow-up habit, one calendar — that quietly hold a home business together when you're busy.
Setting up a home office
A practical, low-drama guide to carving out a workspace at home — even if your 'office' is a corner of a room and a decent chair.
A simple weekly planning checklist
The short, boring checklist Greg actually runs every Sunday to keep a home business from drifting. Nothing fancy, and that's the point.
Who writes this.
Five people who run or have run something from home — Greg leads, and Eric, Jeff, Paul, and Scott keep him honest. No made-up personas with fake yachts. Just folks who like a good checklist and distrust anyone promising easy money.
Greg
Runs a home business out of a corner of the garage. Writes the weekly note. Allergic to the word guru.
Eric
Keeps the checklists honest and the systems boring, which is the point.
Jeff
Tests every "productivity" idea for a month before it earns a place in a guide.
Paul
Reads the SBA and IRS pages so you get the plain-English version.
Scott
Has fallen for enough bad pitches to spot the next one coming.