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Comment by chiph | Hacker News Reader

Small business doesn't get the support it needs from government, in terms of ease of starting & doing business. In places like Singapore you can have a legal firm chartered in an hour. It took a couple of weeks for some friends & I to get an LLC set up (receive the paperwork from the Secretary of State).

I think this is due in part to your Senator/Congressman not really knowing any small businessmen. All the lobbyists he sees are from large corporations. And he doesn't interact with a local dry cleaner, barber, or auto repair, as those services are provided by the capitol complex. If they did, they'd be more aligned with their needs.

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If you find this difficult you might want to try out Stripe Atlas.

> With Stripe Atlas, entrepreneurs can easily incorporate a U.S. company, set up a U.S. bank account, and start accepting payments with Stripe.

https://stripe.com/atlas

It sounds like this is geared toward "high growth" startups.

"With Stripe Atlas, you can establish a C-Corporation for your business in Delaware."

Probably not ideal for a typical small business.

It's really not that hard to get a company set up in the US. It takes less than a day to do it with someone like INCServ with your standard Delaware Corp.

That said, it's definitely far more friendly setting up in places like Australia, Canada, etc. Also a lot less onerous in terms of requiring lawyers, accountants, tax people to stay in compliance. It costs a lot more to just exist in the US.

It took me 30 minutes to set up my C-corp in Colorado. You just go online and register.. pay $50 and pick a name. What did you do?

Colorado tends to rank in the top 10 as far as ease-of-starting I believe. I think these kinds of regulations are often overlooked when states dream of starting their own tech hubs.

It's a spectrum. One of my buddies started an LLC in NY. I'm just going to quote him:

  New York State:
  1. When you incorporate an LLC in this state, they require you to publish your LLC's incorporation in two different newspapers, at a cost of about $1200. They choose the newspapers. 
  2. Their LLC incorporation website only works during business hours. Yes, that's right. The website only works 9 to 5.
  3. They can only receive information by fax and mail and the fax numbers don't work.

I was under the impression that if you want to start an LLC, you do it in Delaware if you ever want to upgrade to a C corporation or be acquired, in Nevada if you worry about taxes, in Wyoming if you want privacy, or in New Mexico if you want anonymity.

Then you register it as a foreign corporation with your state's Secretary of State.

Incorporating in your own state is unnecessary, unless you have a fixed business location that is always staffed during business hours, and are keen on avoiding registered agent fees.

Just incorporate in Delaware. Administration of U.S. corporations is their cash cow. They can't afford to make the process too burdensome, or some other state will eat their lunch.

Nevada is over-rated due to nexus and residency laws.

You have to really know what you're doing and be willing to actually live there. If you're CA based, the FTB will find you. They're 10x more ruthless than the IRS.

NY state imposes the LLC publication requirement on foreign as well as in-state businesses, so that particular strategy, while valid for the stated reasons, doesn't avoid the big up front cost of starting an LLC in New York.

People say that a lot. The truth is, if you don't get acquired/ipo it won't matter. If you do, you'll hire an expensive lawyer anyways and they will move it and handle anything related.

Its easier just to do it in your own state. If it ever really matters, you'll have a ton of money and an expensive lawyer to deal with it for you.

This law is ridiculous and I followed an effort to repeal it a few years ago (it failed), but there are two ways to work around it: you can use a registered agent for your business in a county where it's cheap to publish (I believe for around $150/year you can register with an agent in Albany and advertise in a nearby newspaper for $75 or so), or you can delay actually doing the publication as there's no penalty, and only publicize when you absolutely need to (e.g. if you're suing someone).

Also, if you're not wedded to the simplicity of an LLC you can start an S-Corp in NY state inexpensively and with no publishing requirement–though with more overhead and differences in structure.

This was in North Carolina. We couldn't open our business bank account until we had the paperwork from them, so we couldn't (officially) fund the business or buy anything for it for those few weeks.

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