Why starting a business
takes so many steps

Most people who start a business expect the hard part to be the business itself. Building the product. Finding customers. Figuring out pricing. And yeah, that stuff is hard.

Then you Google "how to start an LLC" and you're buried in 47 tabs about registered agents, EINs, operating agreements, sales tax permits, and something called a "Certificate of Good Standing." It feels like the system was built to talk you out of trying.

It wasn't. There's a logical order to all of it, and each step exists for a reason. This guide walks through why, in the order we'd actually do them. If you just want the tools, we keep the full list on the partners page.

Start with your domain

Your domain is the first thing to lock down, for two reasons. It's first-come-first-served, so the longer you wait, the more likely someone takes yourcompany.com or a squatter parks on it and asks $2,000. And you need it for the very next step, your company email.

Domains run about $10 to $12 a year. Namecheap is our go-to: free WHOIS privacy so your personal info stays out of the public registry, plain pricing, no upsell games. Register it the moment you settle on a name.

Set up professional email before anything else

Getting the order right here saves the most hassle later. Once you have your domain, set up company email, then use that address to create every other account: your bank, your state tax portal, your software logins. Everything lands under one login you control, instead of scattered across a personal Gmail you made in college.

Sending invoices from yourname@gmail.com also tells clients the operation is brand new. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Google Workspace runs about $7 to $14 a month per user and gives you yourname@yourcompany.com plus Drive, Calendar, Meet, and Docs.

You have two choices: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Pick one and move on. We use Google and recommend it for most people because it's the fastest to set up, but if your team already lives in Outlook and Excel, Microsoft is just as good. Both are worlds better than the bargain email bundled with domain registrars, which is clunky and a pain to migrate off later. Don't overthink it past those two.

You need a real address before you can incorporate

Almost every form you'll fill out asks for a business address: the incorporation paperwork, the bank application, the state tax registration. Your home address works legally, but it becomes public record in most states. If you don't want your apartment on the Delaware Division of Corporations website, you need an alternative.

A virtual mailbox gives you a real street address, not a PO Box (many forms reject those), for about $15 a month. Stable and Anytime Mailbox both scan your mail and forward packages, and take about ten minutes to set up. Already have a commercial lease? Use that address and skip this one.

LLC, C-corp, or non-profit: the choice that shapes everything else

People overthink this one, but three rules cover almost everyone.

Raising money from investors (angel, VC, any equity deal)? You want a C-corporation in Delaware. Not because Delaware is special for small businesses, but because investors expect it. The corporate law is well-established, every VC's lawyer already knows it, and a C-corp makes it easy to issue stock and create an option pool. Stripe Atlas is built for exactly this: around $500, and it files the Delaware C-corp, gets your EIN, issues founder stock, and opens a bank account, in about a week.

Not raising equity? An LLC is almost always right. It protects your personal assets, the taxes are simpler (profits pass through to your personal return, so no double taxation), and there's less ongoing paperwork. You form it in the state where you actually operate. Funding with a loan instead of investors doesn't change this. Lenders care about your revenue and credit, not your entity type.

For an LLC, the right service depends on the business. For a straightforward service company, trade, or online shop, ZenBusiness is fast and affordable and includes registered agent service. For a restaurant, clinic, or anything that runs into licenses, permits, or a professional entity (PLLC), LegalZoom gives you attorney access for the questions that come up. Forming a non-profit? LegalZoom also has a dedicated package that forms the corporation and helps with the 501(c)(3) paperwork, which is the hard part.

One more thing, for profitable service LLCs. Once you're netting somewhere around $40,000 to $80,000, ask your accountant about electing S-corp taxation. You pay yourself a reasonable salary and take the rest as distributions, which can lower your self-employment tax. It's a tax election on top of your LLC, not a different company, so nothing else here changes.

Get your EIN, and don't pay for it

An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is your business's tax ID, the company version of a social security number. You need it to open a bank account, hire anyone, and file taxes. It comes right after you incorporate.

Here's the part worth knowing. Stripe Atlas includes your EIN as part of incorporation, but plenty of formation tools don't, or they charge an add-on for it. You never have to pay. You can get one yourself directly from the IRS website in about 15 minutes. Anyone charging a fee for "EIN filing" is charging you for a free government form.

Separate your money. Immediately.

Every accountant and lawyer will tell you the same thing. Run business expenses through your personal checking account and you're "piercing the corporate veil," which means a court could decide your LLC or corp doesn't actually protect your personal assets. You incorporated for that protection. Don't undo it by mixing funds.

Open a business account as soon as you have your incorporation docs and EIN. Mercury is our top pick for most founders: no monthly fees, strong integrations, and it actually understands startups. Rho is what we bank with at Tundra. For corporate cards and spend tracking, Brex and Ramp are both strong, and Ramp's spend controls are hard to beat. Whatever you choose, get a business card you use only for the company.

You don't need bookkeeping software on day one. A dedicated account and card get you most of the way, since every business transaction already lives in one place. Once the volume picks up, QuickBooks or Xero keep things tidy and make tax season painless. QuickBooks is the most common, so most accountants already know it.

If you incorporated in Delaware but live in Texas, you're not done

This catches a lot of first-time founders. You incorporated in Delaware because that's what Stripe Atlas does. But you operate in, say, Texas. Delaware doesn't care where you work. Texas does, and it wants you registered as a "foreign" entity doing business there. Foreign here means out-of-state, not out-of-country.

Formed an LLC in your home state? You can skip this, since you're already registered where you operate. C-corp founders in any state other than Delaware need to handle it. Discern automates the registration and tracks your ongoing compliance, and LegalZoom handles it as a one-off too.

State taxes are a separate step

Incorporating creates your entity. Registering in your state lets you operate there. Registering with your state's tax authority is yet another step.

Sell physical products (or digital goods, in some states) and you'll need a sales tax permit, which means collecting sales tax from customers and sending it to the state. The rules vary wildly. Some states have no sales tax, some tax digital products, some don't. It's a mess, and it's a big part of why Discern exists. A service business with no products still registers for state income tax through the state's Department of Revenue. Usually free, usually a week or two.

Licenses and permits: the part most people skip

Not every business needs a special license. A SaaS company probably doesn't. A freelance designer probably doesn't. But construction, food service, healthcare, financial advising, real estate, and the trades almost always do.

The tricky part is that licenses come from different levels of government. A general contractor might need a state license, a local business license, and county permits. A restaurant needs health department approval, a food handler's permit, maybe a liquor license, and a local business license. The SBA's license finder is free and tells you what you need based on your state and industry. Start there.

Put up a website

Customers and partners look you up before they reach out, and an empty search result reads as not real yet. You don't need much to start.

For a simple marketing site, Squarespace and Wix both let you launch something clean without writing code. Want something custom? You can get surprisingly far building it yourself with AI tools now, or you can get in touch and we'll build it. We host the custom sites we build on Vercel.

Getting paid

If customers owe you money, you need a way to collect it, and the right tool depends on how you sell.

Selling online, or online and in person? Shopify runs the storefront, checkout, payments, and inventory, and its POS keeps in-store and online sales synced. It's the default for e-commerce for a reason. Purely in person? Square gives you card readers, POS terminals, and inventory in one box, and you can set it up in an afternoon. A consulting or services business that invoices clients might not need either. Your bank account, with its ACH and wire support, can be enough to start.

If you have employees, don't DIY payroll

Payroll taxes are the one area where the IRS has no sense of humor. Withhold the wrong amount, file late, or miscalculate state taxes, and you can be personally liable even with an LLC or corp. This is not a spreadsheet job.

Gusto handles payroll, tax withholding, benefits, and compliance for about $40 a month plus $6 per person, and it's our default for small teams. Justworks is a PEO that bundles payroll with access to better-priced health benefits than a small team could get on its own. Rippling does payroll plus IT and device management if you're handing out laptops. Set this up before you make your first offer, not after.

Team communication, once you're not solo

If it's just you, skip this. Once you bring on a second person, Slack is the default: channels keep conversations organized by topic, it connects to almost everything, and the free tier is fine for a small team. Fifteen minutes to set up. It's what we use at Tundra.

Insurance: the thing you hope you never use

Your LLC or corp protects your personal assets. Insurance protects the business itself. A client slips in your office. A customer says your product caused damage. A competitor claims you copied them. Without general liability coverage, those legal fees come straight out of your business account.

Add property insurance if you have a location, workers' comp if you have employees (your state probably requires it), and errors and omissions coverage if you're a consultant or professional services firm. We use Embroker at Tundra. It's built for startups and bundles general liability, professional liability, D&O, and cyber into one online application. Next Insurance and Hiscox are good alternatives for non-tech small businesses, and both quote in minutes. Expect $50 to $150 a month depending on your industry and coverage.

Which AI assistant to use

Pick one early. It pays for itself fast, and three are worth your time.

Claude is the best at coding and building for the web, and it's strong at writing and long documents. It's what we use at Tundra. ChatGPT is the most well-rounded: image generation, voice mode, and the widest set of integrations, a safe default if you want one tool for everything. Gemini is the pick if you live in Google, since it ties into Gmail, Docs, and the rest of Workspace, and its image generation (Nano Banana) is excellent.

These tools earn their keep when you put them to work inside your business, not only in a chat window. At Tundra we build the custom software and wire AI into the systems you already run, so the busywork starts handling itself. If that's interesting, let's talk.

Closing a business is its own checklist

Sometimes the right move is to wind a business down, and that has its own steps. Walking away without formally dissolving the entity is the expensive mistake. The state keeps charging annual fees and franchise taxes, your registered agent keeps billing, and unfiled final returns can leave you personally liable long after you've stopped working.

Closing properly means filing articles of dissolution with the state, sending final payroll and tax returns, notifying creditors, settling debts, and cancelling licenses and registrations in the right order. SimpleClosure handles that paperwork in one flow, and it's what we used to wind down a prior venture. Our link gets you 5% off.

Why the order matters

Each step leans on the one before it. You can't open a bank account without an EIN. You can't get an EIN without incorporating. You can't incorporate without an address. And you want company email set up first, so every account you open after that lands in one place.

People who do these out of order get stuck. They sign up for a payment processor but can't verify the business because there's no bank account yet. They try to open the bank account but don't have incorporation docs. The checklist handles the sequencing for you. Answer a few questions and it lays out the steps in the right order, with the tools for each one.

Common questions