Inquiring entrepreneurs often ask how to start a company. Then they want to know if it should be an LLC. Someone in the crowd chimes in as the proverbial expert, exclaiming, "It's easy, just file organizational docs with the dept. of state. It cost a hundred bucks or so and takes less than 30 minutes." I love how people cherry pick one step in a detailed process and make it seem like the whole thing is that easy. Actually it's easy to do it wrong, but this blog makes the right way easy. Robert Kiyosaki sums it up getting free advice from friends like this, "Free advice is the most expensive advice." 

Choose to Start 

Everyone should take a shot at starting a business. The worst thing is having regret over never doing it and you don't have to quit a job to get going. Running a business can be both the most rewarding and the most challenging thing you and/or your partners have ever done. Choose to start or buy a business and then take action. 

The Least Expensive Advice

Start leaning to pay for good advice and practice working with business advisors. Your business needs a CPA and attorney. You can skip this step however, the longer you defer the more it will cost you in the long run.

The two drivers of successfully starting a business:

Driver #1) The ORDER of the following steps is the difference between future chaos and peace of mind. Sometimes there is a "catch 22" effect where two or more things are simultaneously needed before the other. 

Driver #2) Skipping steps or doing them out of order creates invisible expenses™ costing your business greater than 9 times more in the long run.

9 Insider Tricks on How to Start a Company

Insider Trick #1)

What: Setup Last Pass enterprise password manager.  Also buy my book, The Ultimate Bitcoin Business Guide: For Entrepreneurs & Business Advisors, which has a chapter and more than 10% of the book dedicated to this topic. 

Why: It becomes your business dashboard, reduces hacking risk, provides access controls to team members and save massive amounts of time. 

Critical: This is the single MOST important business tool and MOST often overlooked. 

Insider Trick #2)

What: Choose your business corporate and fictitious names, i.e. ABC Packaging, Inc., and your DBA (doing business as) name, i.e. Boxes Unlimited. 

Why: The formal entity name is required, however the DBA or fictitious name is used for branding. Conducting business under an unregistered fictitious name could leave you legally unprotected. 

Critical: Check with your dept. of state for corporate and fictitious name availability. An available name does not guarantee dept. of state acceptance. 

Insider Trick #3)

What: Set up your business emails using your new URL with Godaddy, google business or similar. The emails should include first names of team members, admin@, info@, noreply@, etc.

Why: Every online account requires an email so you need these emails before doing anything else. 

Critical: Add to Last Pass as you set this up. Emails and addresses spread like wildfire. If you skip this step and spread personal emails, then it will be very HARD to put out the fire.

Insider Trick #4)

What: Acquire a matching URL with your fictitious name. Then acquire the same name for all social media platforms, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, etc.

Why: You have to grab your "brand real estate" on the web for consistency. Otherwise you end up with DBA name variations on multiple platforms.

Critical: Do this simultaneously with #2. Add all the platforms to Last Pass as you set them up. Remember name availability from #2 is not a guarantee, therefore for 100% certainty you may want to do the preliminary research and wait until the dept. of state approves the fictitious name in #9.

Insider Trick #5)

What: Set up a virtual mailbox. Also read our blog: 13 Ways a Virtual Mailbox Eliminates Paper Headaches

Why: We are not yet in an electronic world. The IRS, state agencies, insurance companies and banks love paper and ONLY send correspondence via paper mail. 

Critical: This is NOT optional. You will otherwise get buried in the thick of thin things. Do you want to fumble with paper or sell your stuff? Add your virtual business address provider to Last Pass.

Insider Trick #6)

What: Lease a virtual office, a "regular" office or use a home office. Why: Every business must have a physical address location, which gets spread around like wildfire as you start conducting business. ie. banks, letterhead, business cards, dept. of state, etc. 

Critical: Using a home office address is NOT recommended. This becomes public information and you are likely to change the address resulting in an expensive time consuming address change. Similar to the registered agent, plan to make this address as permanent as possible. 

Insider Trick #7)

What: Get a virtual registered agent. This is special variation of a virtual mailbox. 

Why: They are usually required by most states to receive notice of lawsuits (agent for service of process) and other federal, state and local agency notices.

Critical: While this isn't always required it allows you to file corporate forms without the time and expense of refiling from an address change. The registered agent is like a permanent address of record. 

Insider Trick #8)

What: Get a federal EIN number. 

Why: This is required by the US Dept. of Treasury and the IRS. It's also needed to register for business with state departments of revenue and labor. 

Critical: If your chosen business name is denied by the state after you get an EIN then you have to get another one and cancel the first. If time allows get your entity confirmation from the dept. of state then file with the departments of revenue and labor. Sometimes the simultaneous nature of the steps required a leap of faith. Use your virtual address from #5.

Insider Trick #9)

What: Select your business' legal structure such as LLC, corporation or partnership from #1 above. File forms with the departments of state, revenue and labor & industry for your respective state.  

Why: All US business entities are created on the state level similar to birth certificates for "new people". 

Critical: Use your virtual address from #5 and virtual registered agent address from #7. This step is usually done 1st or 2nd which is way out of order. 

Bonus: A business phone number is also needed for the above processes, but it's not as critical as emails and addresses. Use a google voice phone number at minimum to shield your mobile phone and get messages transcribed to email. Use a virtual phone system like Grasshopper for a more professional appearance especially if customer service phone calls are more relevant to your industry. 

Now Run Your Business

Now that you successfully started your business you'll need a well oiled back office. There's no need to fumble around figuring this out. Online bookkeeping services like The Ultimate Paperless Back Office by invizibiz.biz will show you how to run a business the right way. Don't get this far only to let invisible expenses start sinking you ship.