If you consider Stripe Atlas, here's a cheaper way

[westpox]

@jhonkim For international founders (we are American and Canadian mix), we found out that Stripe Atlas was not straight forward.

We went with Clerky (also from YC in 2011) and it has been quite pleasant so far (we got our bank account set up afterwards with Mercury). We got our first employee last month and Clerky also was pretty straight forward to set them up and allot equity with vesting etc. for the new employee.

 

[jhonkim]

@westpox Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

 

[robert1981]

@jhonkim Slash (YCS21) has it for $200 + state fees

https://www.joinslash.com/products/incorporation

 

[jhonkim]

@robert1981 This is great! Thanks for sharing!

 

[pika25]

@robert1981 Does Slash handle 83B filing?

 

[girly]

@jhonkim Is a phone service necessary only because the company needs a reliable way of being contacted (by the state, etc?)

Or is it legally required?

 

[jhonkim]

@girly You're legally required to register a contacted phone number. I'm not a US citizen, so I don't have any personal number. I subscribed for a phone service to be able to be contacted if needed.

 

[covertocoverbeliever]

@jhonkim mind sharing what phone service you used?

I just registered a company using stripe atlas and I'm stuck and "activating" it because I don't have a US phone number (I'm not a US citizen)

 

[esposadellobo]

@jhonkim The largest issue (being an attorney) I see is that it is basic and cheap for a reason. Depending on the situation the services aren’t great. A lot of the documents should be amended ASAP. And also certain things have changed in the last few years and Stripe literally still has references to things that have been outdated for a while.

I would probably recommend Clerky. But clients prior that came prior to funding, we had to fix a lot of things, they got themselves into prickly situations that were lucky the other party was amenable to our solutions. And there’s so many small things that can just wreak havoc and cost more if they weren’t done at first.

But doing them might take time, so no service offers then or they’d have to up the price.

So my advice would just be- get an attorney the minute you can afford it. The earlier on, the less parties involved, the less time it would be to fix any issue. Or, looking forward, an attorney is a strategic partner to prevent any issue from happening.

 

[jhonkim]

@esposadellobo It is a great advice. Thanks for sharing!

 

[distracted1]

@jhonkim There will always be cheaper ways to do things but that assumes you have some knowledge of what's required. I believe there is a ton of value out of Stripe Atlas but only if you know what you're doing. I had to spend time on lawyers to convert from LLC to C Corp to receive funding.

 

[jhonkim]

@distracted1 I completely agree with you. I dedicated around 20 hours to researching the services offered by 50 different companies, and it became evident to me that Stripe Atlas is likely capitalizing on its brand rather than delivering a superior service. From their perspective, this strategy seems fair.

They've built a company that has positively impacted millions of people worldwide. My point is that Stripe Atlas appears to be more of a supplementary product and not a primary focus of their business. I believe they identified an opportunity to automate a few steps and charge $200 for it. From a business perspective, I can understand their decision. However, as a customer, there are superior solutions where this particular job-to-be-done is the primary focus of those businesses.

 

[fatesrequiem]

@jhonkim Don't use Doola. My friend used it to register the company by spending a lot of money. The process is very slow; Doola keeps requesting the money repeatedly.

 

[love101]

@jhonkim It only cost me $350 for Stripe Atlas cause you can sign up through a Mercury link and get a discount. Also, not having a Stripe Atlas means you wouldn't get any of their partner perks either which can be worth thousands of dollars of API credits in some cases like OpenAI's.

Your post is basically saying to pay the same amount for Stripe Atlas just to get no perks at all and do everything manually... lol.

Like the top comment said, I done this before, and I'll do it again. Stripe Atlas is just that much better.