Start-up stage one complete

I finally received official confirmation from the state that I am now the proud owner/president/CEO/head toilet cleaner of an LLC! Because I am a broke grad student, I have no money to pay developers to create the two web-based businesses I would like to start (in addition to the non-profit my friend and I are starting, and the website I am trying to acquire), so I am studying XHTML and CSS so that I can get a basic site up and running (also I figure it would be beneficial to actually know how my own site runs). Since I have accomplished my initial goal of legal formation, I feel it is time to publicly create some new goals for my ventures, to both keep me accountable to you guys as well as provide some reading pleasure. Note that some of these ideas have been works in progress, so some are more advanced in the process than others.

Goals to be accomplished by November 24, 2009:

For building a hockey rink with partner:
-speak to city officials regarding site planning
-create a business plan/political pitch for politicians and neighbors to the facilit
-decide on firmly creating a non-profit and drawing up basic initial operational agreements between my partner and I

For acquiring existing website
-secure additional $30,000 in funding through friends and family; amazingly I was able to convince a family member who just went through his own M&A to give me $50,000 as a silent partner, which gets me 1/3 of the way toward the money I need to make a decent offer. It's totally crazy since this is the first time that I have ever done something like this - quite empowering! Coming from a desk job (which I still have), to think that someone is willing to invest an entire year's salary into an idea and into me has caused my confidence and drive to increase exponentially, especially since I only decided about 2 months ago to become an entrepreneur (and since I'm only 23).
-confirm that 50% seller financing will be a viable option for the seller (he is working with a broker, so this is a little less direct and slower than I'd like, but I supposed there is no rush when doing these things)
-gain more information on appropriate due diligence steps

For website ideas 1 and 2
-continue to learn XHTML and CSS, finish the two books I have purchased on the topic
-create a basic website from scratch to test the concepts I learned in the book
-save enough for a professional web design tool like Dreamweaver

That's it, hope to keep you guys updated!

Speed+

Reading your update gave me the chills! Its so exciting to get the ball rolling and it reminds me when I started .... the whole world can be yours when you call the shots!

Cool. Keep us updated, I'll be watching this thread.

wow... That's motivational. I think I need to speed up ...