Before you trade
You have got the idea. Nobody has told you what you are supposed to do first.
Sole trader or limited company. What to register for and when. What your trade has to be insured for. Then a real website with your name on it, so you look like a business on the day you become one.
The first month is mostly not knowing
Everyone tells you to just start. Nobody tells you that starting means a dozen small decisions in a particular order, each one sounding official, most of them with a deadline you only find out about after you have missed it.
You can read all of it. It is written down somewhere, in general, for everybody. What is missing is somebody who knows what YOUR trade needs and can tell you in the right order, and then actually do the parts that are just typing.
That is what this is. You describe what you are going to do and who for. Vestae tells you which of it applies to you, in what order, and gets on with the rest.
Your first afternoon
Not a checklist you print out and lose. A conversation, and things that are done at the end of it.
You say what you are going to do
The trade, roughly who you will sell to, whether it is just you. That is the whole brief. No forms to fill in first.
You get a straight answer on sole trader or limited company
For what you are actually doing, not in general. Including the bit nobody says out loud: which one costs you more in accountancy, and when it stops being worth it.
You find out what you must register for, and by when
Self assessment, VAT thresholds, PAYE if you take somebody on. With the dates, so a deadline is something you meet rather than discover.
You find out what your trade has to be insured for
Public liability, professional indemnity, tools, motor for business use. Which ones are legally required for your work and which are simply a bad idea to skip.
You get a name that looks like a business
A proper wordmark, colours, fonts, and a way of writing that sounds like you. Vectorised, so it stays sharp on a van, a sign or an invoice.
You get a website, live, that afternoon
Your services, your prices, your area, photographs made for you, hosted with a certificate. Findable on Google, taking enquiries, ready before you have your first customer.
Then it keeps going: the first quote, the first invoice, the first booking.
What you have at the end of it
Hearth is the level for this. It exists because looking real is what gets you the first job.
A brand that is actually yours
A logo, colours, fonts and a tone of voice, held in one place so everything you ever send reads the same. If you already have one, it stays as it is.
A website, not a holding page
Services, prices, about, contact, gallery, frequently asked questions, hosted with your own domain when you are ready. Edit it by asking, and it publishes immediately.
Photography made for you
You will not have photographs of work you have not done yet. Vestae makes them, on brand, so the site does not look empty while you get going.
Findable
Titles, descriptions, sitemap and structured data handled, so people searching for your trade in your town can actually turn one up.
Answers for your trade, not in general
What to register for, when, and what to be insured for, answered for the thing you are doing rather than for businesses in the abstract.
Somewhere for the first enquiry to land
An enquiry form and online booking from day one, so the first person who finds you does not have to hope you check that inbox.
What people ask before they have started
I have not registered anything yet. Is it too early to be paying for software?
That is exactly the point of Hearth, and it is why the trial is 30 days. The month before you trade is when the decisions are made and when looking real is worth the most. If you get to the end of the trial and have not started, you say so and you stop.
Is this financial or legal advice?
No. It tells you what applies to your trade, in what order, and what the deadlines are, the way a well informed friend in the same trade would. For your accounts and anything contentious you want an accountant or a solicitor, and it will tell you when that is the case rather than guessing.
I do not have a name yet.
Then that is the first thing. Describe what you are going to do and it will put names in front of you, check what is obviously taken, and build the whole look off the one you pick.
What if I change my mind about what the business does?
Say so and it changes with you. The site, the wording, the services and the prices all read from the same records, so there is no separate rewrite job.
What happens when I actually get customers?
You move up to Home, and the quotes, invoices, bookings and customer records switch on. Nothing is rebuilt and nothing is retyped. The website you already have carries on being your website.
Start before you are ready. That is the point.
Vestae is in beta and places are currently full. Join the waitlist, and when your invite arrives, thirty days on Hearth means that by the end of the first afternoon you will know what you have to register for, and you will have a website with your name on it.