Hi Reader!

Pretty much every business is required to have at least one permit or license from their City or County.

It doesn’t matter if your business is online-only.

It doesn’t matter if clients or customers never visit your home.

It’s required just for the privilege of owning a business.

Why do you need one? Because your city or county says you still have a place where you are running your business.

They say you are in a physical location when you are running your business.

If you are creating a physical product, you are designing it, making it, and shipping it from a specific spot. (And if someone returns it, they are returning it to you there.)

If you are creating a digital product, you are making it and posting it online from a specific spot.

So they say you need a business license for the physical location of your business. Even if you only sell products or offer services online.

But that being said, not all cities or counties require this. However, yours might.

And while I'd love to build a database of every city and county in the U.S. to help you, I'd spend 24/7 trying to find the information (and keep it up to date).

This is why your assignment this week is to figure out if you need a business license.

My suggestion is to call your Chamber of Commerce or City Hall and say, “I'm thinking of starting a creative business that does this, what permits and licenses do I need?” (Don’t want to make this phone call? You can hire me to research exactly what permits and licenses your business needs.)

A common question I get when I suggest you do this is, “I'm already in business. Am I going to get in trouble because I don't have a business license?”

For the most part, unless they've caught you for not having them, they're not going to assess tons of fines and penalties. Some locations do have a flat fine, that if you file after 30 or 60 days of being in business you have to pay.

But in most locations, you can say, “I'm thinking of starting this business, what permits and licenses do I need?” And they will be happy to tell you and help you through the process.

So that's my best advice for this one, pick up the phone, do an online search for your city and county, and see what you can find out.

👉 Your assignment: Find out if you need a business license (and if you do, apply for one)

I'll be sitting at my computer until about 9:30 AM Pacific and I'd love to know if you run into any roadblocks in completing this week's task. (And if you are reading this after then, please reply! I'll get back to you ASAP.)

Chat soon,

P.S. I'll be at QuiltCon on Friday, February 21st. Hit reply and let me know if you'll also be there that day so we can try to say hello in person!

Another way to strengthen your legal foundation—Join the Copyright Challenge!

This week, as you are researching your business license (or if you already have yours), I want you to think about this: How protected is your work, really?

If you’ve ever hesitated to share your work because you weren’t sure if it was legally protected, you’re not alone. That’s exactly why I’m running the Create a Copyright Strategy Challenge—a 4-week, hands-on experience where you’ll finally take action to protect your art and your business.

But beyond just registering your work, here’s what you might not expect from this challenge:

• You’ll Market Your Work with More Confidence – No more hesitating to promote your best-selling designs because you’re worried someone might steal them. Knowing your work is protected lets you share freely.
• You’ll Stop Overthinking & Start Taking Action – How much time have you spent worrying about copyright laws but not actually taking steps? No more second-guessing. You’ll follow a clear, simple process with my support every step of the way.
• You’ll Strengthen Your Business for the Long Run – Copyright protection isn’t just about today—it’s about safeguarding your income, your reputation, and your brand for years to come.

The challenge starts Monday and there are only 26 spots available!

​Sign Up Here and take the next step in protecting your work!​

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Other things on my radar...

• Do you make kinetic items? Then thanks to the 9th Circuit you might now have copyright protection for your work!
• Normally professional sports get gold stars when it comes to understanding the value of trademarks. But the new hockey team in Salt Lake has run into issues with their Yeti pick. This is a great breakdown of things you should consider from the trademark side when picking a name for your business, product, or service.
• The Copyright Office released its second report on Copyright and AI. I haven’t unpacked the whole thing yet, but my initial impression is it’s not a major change from the existing policy, which is that simple prompts to the AI model do not create copyrightable content.
• Speaking of AI, we also got our first major court decision about whether it’s fair use to use copyrighted materials to train your AI models (spoiler alert, the court said it’s not.) You can read more about that decision here.

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❤️ Easy to understand legal resources should be available to every creative, regardless of their financial situation. If one of my resources has helped you and you would like to say “thank you”, you can make a contribution here. ❤️