Shore Thing

If you’re the only member of your LLC, you might assume an operating agreement is something for businesses with partners — a document to divide equity and settle disagreements between people who aren’t you. Since there’s no one to disagree with, why bother? Here’s why. It’s not really about disagreements. It’s about proof. An operating agreement spells out how your LLC actually operates — ownership, management structure, how decisions get made, what happens if you bring on a

Quick, honest question: do you know if your LLC owes an annual filing to the state, and if so, whether you’ve actually done it this year? A lot of business owners don’t, and it’s an easy thing to lose track of — you form your LLC once, in a burst of paperwork and relief, and then assume you’re done with the state unless something changes. But depending on your state and how your LLC is taxed, there can be an ongoing filing requirement that has nothing to do with your income t

Nobody thinks about business credit until the moment they need it — a loan, a lease, a large equipment purchase — and discover that a business with a spotless personal credit score can still look invisible to a lender, because the business itself has no credit history of its own. Business credit and personal credit are separate systems. Your personal score doesn’t automatically transfer over, and if you’ve never done anything to build a credit profile specifically for your bu

When you form an LLC, one of the boxes you have to fill in is “registered agent.” And for a lot of first-time business owners, this is the moment the whole thing suddenly feels official and slightly intimidating, like you wandered into a legal process you weren’t prepared for. You didn’t. It’s simpler than it sounds. A registered agent is just the official point of contact for your business — a person or service with a physical address in your state who can receive legal docu

You formed your LLC. You got your EIN. You opened the bank account. You feel done with the official stuff. You might not be. Depending on what you do and where you’re located, there’s often a second layer of paperwork underneath the business-formation basics: local business licenses, city or county permits, and sometimes industry-specific registrations that have nothing to do with your LLC or your EIN and everything to do with the fact that you’re operating in a particular pl

Here’s something most people don’t realize: the moment you start doing business and getting paid, you are a business. The government already considers you one. If you never filed anything, never picked a structure, never made a single official decision — congratulations, you’re a sole proprietor. You didn’t choose it. It chose you. And that’s the part I want to talk about. Because being a sole proprietor by default is not the same as deciding it’s the right structure for you.

My business setup page says I’ll help you avoid the expensive mistakes I already made for you. People sometimes assume that’s just a clever line. It is not. It is autobiography. Let me actually tell you a few, because the whole reason I do this work is that I learned a lot of it the hard, costly way. I’m not going to pretend I started every venture I’ve run with a perfect foundation. I didn’t. I’ve mixed money I should have kept separate. I’ve put off paperwork that would hav

Let me tell you the most expensive shortcut in small business: falling in love with a name before you check whether you can actually use it. I know this one personally. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Picking a name, building around it, and then discovering someone else already has a claim to it is a special kind of frustrating — and it’s entirely avoidable with about five minutes of looking. Before you order anything, register anything, or design a single logo, do these

Later is doing a lot of heavy lifting in small business land. Later I’ll set up a real business bank account. Later I’ll get the LLC sorted. Later I’ll figure out what I’m actually supposed to be paying in taxes. Later, once things slow down a little, once I have more clients, once I have more time. Here’s the problem with later: the IRS doesn’t care about your timeline. And neither do the fees, the fines, the personal liability exposure, or the accountant who’s going to char

One of the quiet reasons people put off setting up their business: they’re convinced step one is hiring a lawyer, and that sounds expensive and serious and like a thing you do once you’re a “real” business. So let me take some pressure off. For most small businesses, the core setup doesn’t require a lawyer at all. Forming an LLC in South Carolina is filing Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State and paying the fee. Getting an EIN is a free ten-minute form on IRS.

There’s a lot of advice out there about starting a business, and a frustrating amount of it is vibes. Follow your passion. Build your brand. Show up authentically. All lovely. None of it tells you what to actually do on a Tuesday when you’ve decided you’re really doing this. So here’s the un-vibey version: what you actually need to handle in your first 30 days, roughly in order, so that the foundation is solid before you build anything fun on top of it. Week 1: Decide and nam

I talk to a lot of people who started their business in the wrong order. Not wrong like catastrophically wrong — wrong like they’re going to have to redo some things and it’s going to be annoying. Here’s the order I recommend: 1. Name your business and check availability. Before you fall in love with a name, make sure it’s available as an LLC in your state, check the USPTO trademark database, and grab the domain. In that order. 2. Form your LLC. File with your state’s Secreta