Tips from the Hub Incubator: Setting Up Your Business
Steps to Setting Up a Business
Quick Guide
The Basics
- Make sure you are ready
- Chose a business name
- Filed an assumed business name
- Drafted a partnership agreement
- Filed as an LLC, S-Corp or C-Corp
- Necessary licenses, permits, etc.
- Obtained an EIN
The Partnership Agreement
- Each partner’s contribution
- Allocations of profit, debt, etc.
- Each partner’s authority and duties
- Voting rules
- How to admit new partners
- Dispute resolution
- How to handle bankruptcy, withdraw, death of a partner, etc.
Follow-up
- Open a business bank account
- Obtain general liability insurance
- Report and pay taxes
Types of Structures
Are you ready?
Starting and running a business is hard work, and involves financial risk. Are you ready?
Starting the Business
Starting a business is not quite as simple as just hanging out your shingle, and having partners can complicate things further. Whether your partner is a business acquaintance, a friend, or your spouse, it’s important for the long-term survival of the business to lay out the ground-rules up front.
The Rules
How do you make decisions? Do you talk until the partners all agree? Do you set limits on debate and vote? Do partners have areas of expertise within which they make the final decision? Does your decision making process differ based on how big or how urgent the decision is? You don’t want to get into your first crisis and discover that you cannot make an effective decision.
Likewise, you don’t want to discover that your partner thinks they can sell the business to just anyone after your partner decides to exit the business.
The basic rules for how you run your business need to cover each partner’s authority and responsibilities, how you make decisions, and how partners can go their separate ways when one partner wants to move to something new.
Helpful Links
See our advice on naming your company and choosing a company structure!
Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) can be obtained for free, quickly, and online. The IRS tells you how to get an EIN.
How We Help
We’ve been there, and we know that the process and steps aren’t automatic. We’ll work with you to figure out what you need and to connect with the legal support to get it right the first time.