I don't understand when people say it's expensive to run a small business, I find quite the opposite.
1. Insurance ($1k/yr), This is pre-tax money.
2. You can do your accounting in a google spreadsheet or on a piece of paper when you are small, after that you can get Quickbooks. a 1 time fee of $199.
3.Taxes -
A) Where I live, New York State, I work out of my house (tax deduction), Can write off mileage (55cents/mile)
B) The first $17k you make can go directly into an individual 401k pre-tax, after that it's like 25% of your income, pre-tax into retirement up to $50k
C) You have to pay sales tax, but that's just passed along to your customers, 8%, you even get 3% of that back for collecting it.
D) For the rest of the money you make, I'll admit the tax rate is higher since you have to pay both sides of SS, so that's like 10-12% higher, with all these tax breaks, I don't sweat it too much.
4. Advertising - all my advertising is word of mouth ($0), the rest of it can be done cheaply using your creativity