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How I Started My Own Animation Company with SEAP (Self Employment Assistance Program) and What I Learned in the Process

12/19/2018

By Caroline Torres

I had recently become unemployed this past year, when I got a letter in the mail from the NY Department of Labor  suggesting that I apply to their program called SEAP (Self Employment Assistance Program). Working in animation, jobs come and go quite frequently, so I was unemployed due to lack of work, not because I’m lazy, thank you very much. So I decided to apply to the program, since I had been wanting to start my own company for awhile. Walt Disney started Disney his when he was only 22, so I am way behind schedule!

The rules of SEAP are basically that you get unemployment benefits, but you don’t have to look for a job for 26 weeks as long as you: go to 20 hours of free business classes, find and talk to a business mentor twice, fill out some forms they give you to guide you through your business journey, and don’t work at another job. So that’s about 3 months you get to dig in. You can only do SEAP once though, so you have to know what you want to do. Of course, I wanted to make an animation company. I’d been working in animation for 6 years and went to school for it, and won a small Emmy already. I love animation and want to spread joy to the world with it! : ) So I sent back my business idea in the application form, also explained my experience in animation, and a few weeks later I got accepted into the program!! Seemed like they let a lot of people in later on though.

I signed up for 20 hours of business courses online through Eventbrite, you just Google New York State Business Solutions. If you’re not from New York, idk your state’s rules but they’re probably similar? You can go to these classes for free without even being in the program though. The most important things I learned were about the different types of businesses there are, and which one to chose. There are S-Corps and C-Corps for big companies; and Sole Proprietorships for tiny businesses that cost zero to make, but if you get into any trouble, people can sue the pants off of you. Then there are the beautiful LLC’s (Limited Liability Companies) which are the newest business formation. LLC’s cost about $1,000 to make, by filling out this long form and sending it in with money; but your personal bank account can’t be touched if someone sues you, only your business account. Unless you are being REAL BAD and spending all the company money on personal stuff, and not paying taxes on those things; well then you’re just screwed. Then your personal money can be sued upon too! But that’s your fault, so. For shame. That’s also why you have to make a separate business bank account, but that’s one of the last steps. Btw, a business account at TD Bank or Citibank require you keep $1,500.00 in the bank at all times. Annoying much??? Before getting the bank account, you need to get an EIN number online, that’s your business’ ID code for taxes.

I may not be getting everything here 100% correct, so you should sign up for those wonderful free business courses if you want the pros telling you what’s what. But I know way more than I did when I started, and just want to share my experience so far. I was le Googling “How To Start an Animation Company” and got zip nada. So I figured I’d write my own blog post about it, since now I’ve done it! Probably could’ve just popped open a biography about Disney, but eh. I wanted the modern scoop on how to create an animation company!

Right, so to form an LLC, you have to file your company with the State. I got my form online and filled it out with some help from this youtube master: LLC University, and sent it in with all this money I saved up. Which was somewhat stupid, more on that later. My money was fine. To start a business you should have $10,000.00 to start btw, I read that in “Small Business for Dummies.” I’m still just working from home, until I can afford an office space or storefront. You also need to fill out these Articles of Organization. Which is just gallons of paperwork that I should’ve had the pro bono lawyer help me with. More on her later.

To think of my company name, Mangomation - I wanted something to depict that the animations are not so Adult Swimmy and a bit cuter with more heart. Mangos are sweet so, mix that with animation, and... I like it! I mean, I like Adult Swim but I don’t want to draw in that style. I mean I would. But I don’t really want to all the time. Then my dad made me an awesome logo for the website and, violaaa! I used to think viola meant ‘that’s life’ but then I took a trip to France and it turns out it actually means ‘there it is’ like something has been made. My dad also gave me some advertising tips since that’s his jam, but he’s been giving me those my whole life. You would think I’d be better at it.

The starter video they gave me via SEAP was then this and that-ing about Permits, so I called the State (as the video informed me I must do) to see if I need any permits. They said something to the effect of, “What, why would you? Stop calling us with stupid questions.” to which I replied something like, “Well, Ok then. Thank you for keeping me on hold for an hour.” Just kidding, they hang up on you before you can get that much out. So: no money has to go toward permits for animation companies, woo! Wouldn’t it have been nice if somebody could have told me that in the first place? (Ahem, I’m doing that for you now <3)  But when I rent out a place, there will be a lot of insurance to buy. My buddies from an old animation company I worked at let me know the scoop about that.

Then I took some classes on taxes, and those went right over my head, luckily you’re supposed to just hire an accountant, and even consult one before opening your own business. Along with the free classes, the New York State has pro bono (the means they’re free cuz your business is so new and probably poor af) lawyers! So I went to see one of these lawyers or attorneys (they seemed to use these words interchangeably (I know they’re not)) and she looked over my Filings and my Articles of Organization. She then verbally tore them apart (also with her pen, crossin everything out and writing new things in) and said to resend them in. I should have gone to her before sending them in, in the first place. I told you there was more to the youtube master. I did not forget to get back to it! I mean, the filings worked, my business exists now; it’s just a lot of the details were off for what my business is. Lots of things were written as if I have a business partner, which I do not. I also made a client contract and employee contracts, and she tore those apart with her pen too. She liked to say “You need to protect yourself more!” Soon, they should also have pro bono accountants. I am pumped for that. Because I do not want to pay. Anymore. *wheezes*

It took me a few tries to find a business mentor, but finally an animator friend of mine’s wife agreed to be helpful and talk to me/show me around her company. She owns a Textile School in Brooklyn by me, and has hundreds of kids in there weaving and batiking - it is so cool. She answered my questions and insisted I be a good and kind business owner, and not a greedy p.o.s. I mean, any extra money I make is going to take that damn wall down and save all the animals in crisis. Then she signed a sheet saying she talked to me and that she gave me good advice. One thing she said that eased my stress was that her company once was doing something illegal by accident, but they just had to change it and they were fine. No one’s trying to ruin your life and put you in the slammer if you do something wrong that’s small and you didn’t do it on purpose. But if it’s something big and you’re totally being a d*ck, well that’s different.

Then! You need a Business Plan. This is a roadmap for your business’ journey. You make lots of reasonable guesses at how much money you will make in the upcoming 5 years (do online and library market research for animation to reach these estimates), and tell the paper how you plan to succeed. The Business Plan should be 10 pages long for a small company, and get bigger as your company grows. They always get revised in the future. Also, if you have a business partner, the Filings and Articles of Organization are way more about setting the boundaries between you and your partner, a lot of “If you do this such bad thing I’m going to sue you, and also we are no longer friends.”

Ok, about now you are going to get tons and tons of junk mail, telemarketers, and companies grabbing for your money saying you need their help so your business doesn’t fail, and that you’re gonna mess things up on your own and go to jail without their help. My teachers all said to ignore these, or you are a buffoon. I got tricked into using AdIQ by a friendly salesman, and it was a giant heaping waste of money. You can also apply for a loan, I didn’t do that but it’s common. My one friend did that, and he said he spent half of the loan on his wedding. His business is doing well though. Perhaps this is the secret?

A good class I went to was ‘Advanced Strategies in Social Media’. The teacher taught us all about how the Google decides where to put your website in order in the search. The Google has ROBOT SPIDERS that run around the internet looking for good, well behaved websites, and puts them up top in searches. So when people search for ‘animation’, you’ll come up sooner than later if you’re doing the right things/you’re poppin’ (aka people are coming to your site). You can pay for Ads so you’re up top in the search, but people will see that you are an Ad and likely ignore you (also it costs too much money for a startup). So to get the ‘organic’ ‘natural’ top placement, you need to write a nice fat summary of your business on the front page of your website with some words people will look for in searches, but don’t make it sound stupid. And have a good Title and Subtitle on the first page. Because the spiders like this. Then you should write articles for other sites, and have LINKS from those article that go back to YOUR website. Those are called backlinks and the SPIDERS LOVE backlinks! Straight straight to the top top for you. I’m not quite sure how to go about asking these sites if you can write for them though, I have not tried this one yet. But! The more backlinks the better, especially if you can write for someone like the New York Times, which our teacher had done. Woow! And also, you should make a blog once a month. *cough* … Blogs have tons of words people looking for what you’re selling are searching for. Just makes things easier. We shall see, I mean this is my first Blog Post. I hope you are enjoying yourself.

I made this website too *gestures* which is part of the animation business making process of course. You can just look through it to see what I’ve done. I looked at other animation company websites and said “yes but let me do it my way, AND BETTER.” I made a sample animation for clients to see what they’d be getting, and so they know I can actually animate. I used SquareSpace because the site translates to phones really nicely, and all the elderly ladies in my classes said Wix has nonexistent customer service. Do not piss off these ladies, Wix. But SquareSpace was pretty counterintuitive to navigate in my opinion. But I tried Wix’s free sample too, and it was pretty glitchy. Anyhoo, then I hired one of my new classmates from the UK to do voice overs (Lol, sidenote: my friend is dating someone from London and she told him she likes his voice, and he said... he does not like her voice. But he likes her. <3) - and my fiance did voice overs too (pro-bono!). Then said classmate did the sound design. My fiance and I went to a Recording Studio to record his dialogue, and to check the place out. I would bring future clients there if they wanted to do voice over recordings, so I wanted to make sure it was good to go, and that the owner was pleasant to work with. He was.

I made an Instagram and a Facebook for Mangomation, also a Pinterest and Twitter but I don’t use those as often, so I wonder if I should have even bothered? I got a few interested people looking for cartoons from Instagram. Then, I got a storefront on The Knot (that costs $) since I want to make animations to show at weddings (ugh, cute) and The Knot people saw my page and website, and picked Mangomation for ‘Best of Weddings 2019’! *Pops champagne*

I went to a meet-up with other Knot Pro business people, and networked with them. The lady in charge gave me some tips for my storefront (add more pictures, write in first person not third) and said wedding cartoons are an AWESOME IDEA and I was like YEAH I KNOW RIGHT?! ~ but they’re not too common.. YET. Yet yet yet yet yet, madam. Uphill amazing battle, folks. I’ll get there. <3 Don’t you worry about it.

Next, you have to put your company’s ad in two newspapers for 6 weeks, one is a daily newspaper and the other is a weekly. The newspaper companies make the ad for you, with NO PICTURE, mind you, or description of your company. What is even the point? You have to do this within 120 days of filing. This costs another $700 in Brooklyn, way more in Manhattan, and is the stupidest most out of date thing ever. The lawyer teachers of mine said they are working to delete this rule, but they’re not quite there yet. It’s basically the only thing keeping newspapers alive. So. Goodbye money! So long! It’s been nice. I’ve heard that you can just.. not do this, and no one will bother you. But I’ve also heard that your company will be invalid if you do not do this, so I’m not taking any chances, thank you. This was one of the most frustrating parts of this whole business start-up process, and there have been a lot of frustrating parts. The County Clerk of Brooklyn (KINGS County actually, that’s the real name of Brooklyn) they won’t pick their phones up, they’ll just keep you on hold infinitely. Just *beep beep beep beep* - so I called the Manhattan County Clerk, and they said, “Well your business is in Brooklyn so we can’t help you, just go to the Kings County Clerk in person. Take the train, and walk there.” So ok, you have to literally go to the County Clerk, and say “I want to Publish my company in the newspapers, that whole deal, here are my papers saying I’m in business.” And then in this big DMV-like room, one of these three ladies (not one, almighty clerk in a giant clerk chair, which it sounds like) choses the newspapers for you, and gives you their numbers to call. Well see, the County Clerk is pretty much.. NOT ON EFFIN GOOGLE MAPS. I walked around this place for 2 dang hours before I asked a cop where it was, and of course he pointed right behind him. Next I called the newspapers and gave them all my money and they ran the ads, and then they send you these affidavits as proof that the ads ran, and you send those to the State with $50 more bucks, and a Certificate of Publication you can print out from online. Definitely look all these nitty gritty details you have to do up online if you’re actually going to start a business, or take the classes - I’m more letting you know the generality of what I did. My passion is in animation, not in this bureaucratic horse manure. But you have to wade through it all to get to the good stuff. I’m sure it will be worth it. It’s been done before.

Another annoying thing while I’m here complaining, is the people at New York State Business Solutions, they’re all like, “Here’s my card! Call me anytime and I will help you navigate the government, and answer any questions you may have, and work on your business plan with you!” and then you call, get put on hold for an hour, and then no one picks up or they don’t help at all. Then you go to the next class, and they give you their business cards again and say the same thing like they’re actually going to help. Just don’t call, save your precious time. This goes for Queens, and Manhattan, and Brooklyn too. Oh yes, they have classes in all the boroughs, which is cool. I found bombarding the teachers with my questions after class the best way to figure out everything I needed to do. For the most part this experience was very good, New York State is actually trying to help businesses start and grow! Just you know.. it’s the little things. Little hour long wastes of time piling up that tick me off.

Ok, back on track: then I designed business cards with Vista Prints. Those were pretty good, but they trick you into buying the good stuff which isn’t worth it, it’s just harder to stick a tack into them because they’re so thick. Just buy the standard cards. Then I passed them out to storefronts that I liked or that seemed artsy, and traded them like playing cards at The Knot Meet and Greet. This one bubble tea place definitely threw them out. So guess who gets their bubble tea three blocks away now instead of one? That would be me.

What else? I had to fill out the SEAP forms with teacher signatures saying I went to the classes, and filled out another that was a business plan frame. Then I read some inspirational books, and watched business mentor youtube videos which all basically said, “When you start making that money… don’t go spend it all at the club like I did.” Got it, chief. I don’t really like the club anyway. The books focused on Self Care and rewarding yourself when you do something awesome. Don’t push yourself to exhaustion, but don’t be a lazy couch potato either. Don’t do dishes when you should be working. That sort of thing. One of these books was called “Lucky Bitch” - she said one thing that keeps ringing in my ears, something like “Most people say they’ve tried everything! But they’ve probably tried about two things and given up.” Going up on my quote wall! Oh yes, and on that note, businesses with partners succeed more often than ones with just one owner (wah) because they can cheerlead for each other when one wants to give up. Also only 30% of all businesses created succeed (learned that in the Dummy book and in class). Wow that’s less than marriage. The other book I read was “The 4 Hour Work Week” - that book’ll get you off your bum fast. He makes you feel so lazy…!

I got a Yelp account.. I heard they can be bullies, but I also heard they bullied someone that I know who is most unpleasant, so I’m banking that the enemy of my enemy will be my friend. Time will tell.

Alright I think that’s everything. I’m now working on some more animations to gain attention on the youtube and instiegram. Step by step imma have a respectable animation company. : ) Wooo! #Goals. Ah yes - and Advertising, I’ve spent quite a lot so far on that and they’re all useless: Google, Facebook, Instagram. I could call Nathan for You. But that would be a disaster. My brother says to try Like Growers. I resist. I’m trying for free advertising now, quality posts that will be shared naturally, promote yourself. I’m going to talk to a wonderful animation company called Cartuna in a month, ask them for some advice. They’ve got funny content on their instagram and a great show ‘Human Kind Of.’ I was also told in class to have a company mission statement. This states your company’s values, and you can look back on it if you start to be like McDonalds serving plastic burgers instead of meat. Shake Shack is the new McDonalds.

Oh yes, I just remembered: Customer Service is very important. The sale continues after the sale often. If you ignore the customer’s problems with you product, you’ll ruin your good name and people will hate you and not buy from you anymore. So don’t be a wad. Also. What was it, nope that’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure I’ll make a follow up post on this in a year or so. Ah yes! Apparently businesses takes about 3 years to make a profit. Learned that from ‘The Office’ and they said it in class about 50 times too. One more thing I learned, “Your business’s reputation can be destroyed in 2 seconds and take years to rebuild.” So, cutting corners = bad. There’s a good Bob’s Burgers episode about that with those wood plank toys they make.    

In conclusion, every step towards making my dream animation company a reality has been new and scary. Every necessary step seems to starburst into five more necessary steps. But it’s way better than sitting at a boring office job pissed off that I haven’t started. Well, you should really keep your job and have the business as a side project to start. Since SEAP ended, I’ve been doing freelance. But now I feel much more motivated to create quality content that will help my business succeed. All good things.

If you would like an animation for your business, website, event, or some other amazing idea you have in mind… Please send me a message! I work freaking hard, and I’m way better than most of the stuff I see out there. Not better than Disney... but I’ll give you a fair price and that, is because I like you.

Omg my eyes hurt from writing this. X_x Take breaks! Right, that’s an important one too!