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Comment by d4mi3n | Hacker News Reader

I set up an LLC via Atlas. The process was simple, but there's a lot of legwork at the state/city level that they don't do and you'll need to be prepared to do yourself.

Atlas does not remove the need for an accountant, or a lawyer, so either budget that in if you're thinking of forming an LLC.

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(Edwin from Stripe here.) Yes, Atlas right now is designed to start a company—but it's a not a complete replacement for lawyers or bookkeeping! When a business is started with Atlas, we provide legal guides and templates for the typical next steps after incorporation, and a free consult with a startup attorney. We have a growing network of lawyers and accountants who work with Atlas businesses (and provide their services at a reduced rate for them). That said, we've some things in the works on both of these fronts to further reduce legwork.

> That said, we've some things in the works on both of these fronts to further reduce legwork.

Care to share around when that will come out?

Nothing solid yet, but can you email me at edwin@stripe.com and we can stay in touch?

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I went through the same process to create an LLC, and while the process was simple enough, once I had my attorney look over it, I realized that I needed to make changes that Atlas would not accommodate on their boilerplate. So instead I used a different, more established company to form the LLC.

Both you and the parent describe my experience.

If I ran Stripe I’d acquire CorpNet (and Gusto and TaxAct while we’re at it) to make a complete C Corp package.

Ironically if you go to a typical small town venture lawyer you get copy and pasted docs anyway.

I don’t know if it reassures you but for 99% of people the docs never become an issue. They could be literal chicken scratch and for the most part things will be okay. This is really why the Atlas product works.

Good legal documentation is an insurance policy. You never want to use it but it is vital when something happens and you have to refer to it.

When you're first starting out, you can cut it with chea boilerplate insurance (and legal docs), but at some point you graduate to specialized commercial insurance.

The difference is that you never do this with your legal docs for whatever reason.

There’s a lot of extra legwork with Atlas even outside the extra state level work. We essentially had to hire a lawyer to redo or to create a lot of the documents we got from Atlas (IP agreements, employment agreements, etc were all not adequate). I mean it doesn’t even handle beneficiary signatures for stock agreements correctly. Just overall seems like a half baked product - either that or our business just wasn’t a fit (typical VC backed startup).

Hm! Curious to hear more about what had to be re-done. (Sorry that caused you work.) Could you email me at edwin@stripe.com?

Sounds kind of like my experience using Gusto to comply with state and local laws when hiring employees and contractors in various places. Not groundbreaking, much legwork remains, but still helpful.

What kind of legwork would be required for a European to set up LLC via Atlas?

I thought the idea was to let Atlas do everything?

As I understand it, Atlas does a few things:

1. They automate the process of establishing an LLC within the US

2. They provide a lot of boilerplate legal documents (formation documents, tax registration, etc).

3. They partner with banks and legal services to get Atlas customers a discount on auxiliary services (layers, accountants, business bank accounts).

There may be more to it than that, but that's all I've seen of the service thus far. My incorporation needs were pretty simple and I'm already a Stripe customer, which was the main driver for me to try out Atlas.

As a UK person it seems insane this is even a thing. It takes £12.50 and about 5 minutes to set up a limited company here via a pretty slick govt process. The govt provides boilerplate legal documents and automatically sets up the tax registration.

When it comes to filing yearly accounts the govt site for companies turning over less than around $1m automatically files the accounts for you and works out your tax liability.

It’s funny, the US is an incredibly burdensome place to set up and run a business. That being said, it’s easier to do small amounts of self employment work without needing any real paperwork, as you don’t need to set yourself up as a sole trader the way you do in the UK.

Do you mean tasks such as setting up a mailbox and registering with the big city you may live in?

Additional stuff I needed to do after forming an LLC. Note that I incorporated in Delaware and operate in California, which added some additional requirements I would not have had if I incorporated in the same state I operated in:

1. Acquire a certificate of good standing for my LLC from the Delaware Secretary of State.

2. Register with the California Secretary of State as a foreign LLC (out of state LLC), which required the aforementioned letter of good standing.

3. Acquire a business license from the city my LLC operates in.

4. Pay a franchise fee to the California Franchise Tax board.

5. Figure out what other fees I'm on the hook for. I wasn't able to figure this out on my own and am currently working with an accountant and lawyer I found after incorporated to help me do this correctly.

There's probably going to be a few other odds and ends. I operate out of my home and only employ myself, which saves on a lot of other paperwork and logistics I'd need to sort out otherwise.

I had the Delaware registration / California operating setup. The wind down is just as many steps. Cancelling sales / use tax registrations, the SoS registration, making your FTB tax is all paid and then cancelled in both states. Making sure both state and federal returns are marked final and don't close your bank account until you've paid them all.

wow you all should read the laws, specifically the consequences

not registering your out of state entity basically has no consequences, its a lower consequence than failing to return a book to the library and has the same level of resources set aside to enforce it

reach the same conclusion yourself as this is obviously not condoning anything, but anyone can run circles around you with the same runway and resource prioritization by ignoring these states

you might end up paying the same registration fees eventually just later, and depending on the state you get retroactive limited liability in the courts.

Remember tell things:

1) municipalities are in competition with each other to attract business

2) asking them if a certain level of compliance is necessary is like asking a barber if you need a haircut. It’s like asking the oil changer if they noticed anything else. Learn the consequences yourself and you’ll be able to make objective decisions.

i wish there was a service that would just tell me what fees i needed to pay. this was a big pain in the butt and most of the value i paid for for professional help.

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