This is the chapter everyone wants to skip. Don’t. Every hour you spend here saves you a day later, and at least one of these steps will stop you losing real money.
1.1 Get a separate email address
Not your personal one. A brand new address that exists only for the business.
If you’ve already got a business idea, work it into the name. If you haven’t, make one up — pick your stage name now and use it consistently everywhere. It doesn’t have to be clever. It has to be spellable over the phone.
- Gmail is the Bogan’s choice, purely because of what comes attached: Drive, YouTube, Contacts and Sheets, all free, all in one login.
- Proton Mail if you want it locked down and private. Also free.
Why bother? Because when your business email and your personal email are the same inbox, two things happen: you miss customer messages in the noise, and the day you want to sell the business or hand it to someone, you can’t — it’s tangled up with your Nan’s birthday photos.
Keep business and personal separate from day one. It’s a two-minute job now and a two-week job later.
1.2 Sort out your passwords properly
I used to say “get a notebook and write your logins down”. Plenty of Bogans still do, and honestly, a notebook in a drawer beats the same password on forty sites.
But in 2026 you’re going to end up with thirty-odd accounts, some of them holding your money. So do it properly:
Do this now
- Install a password manager. Bitwarden is free and does everything you need. 1Password and Proton Pass are also solid.
- Turn on two-factor authentication on your email first, then on anything holding money. Use an authenticator app, not SMS — SIM swapping is a real thing and it’s how people lose exchange accounts.
- Write your password manager’s master password and your 2FA recovery codes on paper. Put the paper somewhere a burglar wouldn’t look and a fire wouldn’t reach. This is the one thing that should be in the notebook.
Your email address is the master key to every other account you will ever create. Anyone who gets into it can reset the lot. Secure the email before you secure anything else.
1.3 Get an ABN — it’s free
If you’re an Aussie earning money from a business activity, you want an Australian Business Number. It’s free from the Australian Business Register at abr.gov.au, it takes about fifteen minutes, and you’ll need it for:
- Invoicing anyone (without one, clients must withhold 47% of your payment).
- Signing up to most Australian affiliate networks.
- Looking like a business instead of a bloke with a Gmail account.
Only apply if you’re genuinely carrying on or starting a business — the ABR asks, and lying on the form is not the flex you think it is.
- Every dollar you earn is assessable income. Affiliate commissions, Fiverr jobs, market stall cash, crypto gains. All of it.
- GST kicks in at $75,000 turnover. Under that, you don’t have to register. Over it, you must.
- Keep your records for five years. The ATO can and does ask.
- Put money aside as you go. Open a second savings account and move 25–30% of every payment into it the day it lands. The bill always comes.
- If you’re on a Centrelink payment, you must report what you earn. Not reporting it turns a good month into a debt notice. Report it, keep the payment tapering properly, and grow out of it the honest way.
This is general information, not tax advice. When the money gets real, spend a couple of hundred on an accountant — it’s deductible, and they’ll find more than they cost.
1.4 Separate the money
Open a second bank account purely for the business, and run everything through it. Every sale in, every expense out. When tax time comes you export one statement instead of picking your business out of six months of servo receipts and Uber Eats.
You’ll also want ways to get paid and to pay:
| Tool | What it’s good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| PayPal | Expected just about everywhere. Easy for customers. | Fees add up; hold periods on new accounts. |
| Wise | Getting paid in USD/GBP without getting flogged on the exchange rate. | Not a bank — don’t park your savings there. |
| Stripe | Taking card payments on your own site. | Needs an ABN and a bit of setup. |
| A separate debit card | Online subscriptions and ad spend, ring-fenced from your real money. | Keep a small balance on it, on purpose. |
The moment you sign up to an American platform — Amazon Associates, ClickBank, most US networks — they’ll ask you to complete a W-8BEN. It’s a one-page form telling the US tax office you’re a foreign resident. Fill it in. Under the Australia–US tax treaty it drops your US withholding from 30% to a much lower rate, and on most affiliate income to zero. Skip it and you’re donating a third of your commissions to the IRS for no reason.
1.5 Set up your storage and contacts
Through your Google account, open Drive. This is where business material lives from now on: images you like the look of, website copy, invoice templates, email templates, receipts. No personal documents in there. Make folders on day one and you’ll never have to tidy it.
Then open Contacts. This is going to matter more than you think — Chapter 6 is built on it.
Do this now
- Add everyone you’ve met on the third-party sites you’ll join in Chapter 2.
- Add the people from your personal contacts who might genuinely buy, refer or help. Leave out the ones who never will — you know who they are. My Dad and my Grandma are not leads.
- When you add someone, add everything: address, website, birthday. Hit “show more” for custom fields and drop their socials in there.
- Put a monthly reminder in your calendar to update it.
Weeks get lost in here by people fiddling with it. Ten minutes a month, that’s it. But don’t let a missing email address cost you a sale later — that stings more than the ten minutes ever did.
1.6 One last thing before you move on
Write down, in one sentence, what you’re trying to earn and by when. “I want to make $500 a month by Christmas” is a target. “I want to make money online” is a feeling.
Stick it on the fridge. Chapter 10 will hold you to it.