Journey 13 · Running a businessbeginningbuilding
Set Up the Business
“I'm already doing the work. I just haven't made it a real business.”
You become: Someone with a real business, not a side hustle
The legal and financial spine, in the order the paperwork actually allows. Entity, EIN, bank account, card payments, books — with the waiting built into the plan instead of ambushing you.
Understand
Which structure fits, and what genuinely has to come first.
Practice
Filing things with agencies and waiting properly.
Create
A registered business with its own money.
Evidence
Formation documents, an EIN letter, and a bank account in the business's name.
Decide the shape
Two decisions that everything downstream depends on. Get them right before you file anything.
- Understand30m
Name it, and check the name is free
Search your Secretary of State's business entity database for the name you want, then search the USPTO trademark database for the same words. Also check the .com and the Google result. Names get rejected at filing for being 'deceptively similar' to an existing one, and that rejection costs you the fee and the week. Have a second and third choice ready before you file.
You’ll have:A first-choice name that returns no conflict, plus two backups.
- Understand45m
Choose the structure — and know why
Most one-person service businesses form a single-member LLC: it separates your personal assets from the business's liabilities, and by default it's taxed exactly like the sole proprietorship you're already running, so nothing about your taxes gets harder. Write down, in one sentence, why you're choosing what you're choosing. If you have partners, employees, or expect to clear roughly $80k+ in profit, that sentence is worth twenty minutes with a CPA first — the S-corp election question is real money and it is genuinely specific to your numbers.
You’ll have:A written one-line reason for your structure choice.
- Understand1h
Find out what your trade actually requires
Before you file anything, search '[your state] contractor licensing board' and '[your trade] licence [your state]'. In some states an HVAC or plumbing licence must be held by a qualifying individual before the entity can be registered to do that work at all — filing the LLC first and discovering that afterwards means doing it twice. Write down: the licensing body, whether the licence is state / county / city, and whether it attaches to you or to the company.
You’ll have:A one-page note of who licenses your trade and at what level.
9 more actions · 6h 20m of work
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File it
Twenty minutes of forms, then a wait you cannot skip. Start the wait today.
- Create45m
File the LLC with the Secretary of State
- Practice20m
Wait — and use the wait
- Create20m
Get the EIN from the IRS — free, in ten minutes
- Create1h
Write the operating agreement
Separate the money
The single highest-value habit in this journey. Mixed funds are how liability protection gets lost.
- Create1h 30m
Open the business bank account
- Create45m
Set up Stripe so you can take a card
- Practice1h
Start the books on day one
- Create30m
Open the tax account and fund it
- Evidence10m
Record the date you became a business
Tools this journey uses
Several actions above run straight through these. All free, no signup.