The Death of Ecommerce Startups?

I’m working on several startups concurrently. One which will hard launch later this year is in the epublishing space. The second one is in the biotech space. This startup is in its nascent stages as my partner and I are still building out the founding team and working on the business model. The third, and newest concept, is an ecommerce startup in the health and fitness space.

The last mentioned opportunity is actually not a startup yet as I am in the information-gathering stage. Whether I decide to promote it to a viable startup depends on the results of what I call my startup due diligence process.

Red Flags A Waving

As I’m going about the process of due diligence with this concept — determining whether or not this opportunity makes business sense — a big potential red flag has become apparent. This year or next, there might very well be a massive headache with respect to collecting online sales tax from out-of-state customers. (more…)