- Hey, what's going on?
This is Seth, and in this video,
I'm going to show you a really quick and easy way
that you can create your own LLC or corporation.
And the process of creating your own business entity
is something that I think a lot of people get
really intimidated by, because frankly, most states
do not do a good job of making it easy to do this.
Like, the average person has no idea what steps or process
they have to go through in order to make it happen,
and every state is a little bit different.
But the good news is there are a number
of different websites out there that have services
that make this process much, much easier
than if you were just doing it all by yourself.
And the one that I'm gonna show you about in this video
is a website called Rocket Lawyer.
And what I'm gonna show you is basically the exact steps
that I would be going through if I was starting over today.
And just speaking for myself, I'm a real estate investor,
and I have a single member LLC.
So it's basically a limited liability company
with one owner, me.
So it's a very simple type of business entity
that's not very complicated at all,
and I'm just gonna take you through the steps
of how to do this on Rocket Lawyer's website.
I'm gonna have an affiliate link
to the Rocket Lawyer website beneath this video.
If you wanna click on that, you can just follow along,
and I will show you the exact steps you can go through
to get this done for yourself, and keep in mind,
you don't wanna necessarily answer these questions
exactly the same way that I am.
I'm just showing you how I would do it.
And also keep in mind, I'm not an attorney,
and I'm not telling you that you should be doing this
or what type of entity you should be doing
or anything like that.
I'm just saying that, you know, if you want to create
an entity for yourself, this is how you can do that.
So, follow along.
I'll show you how it all works,
and we'll get it done.
All righty.
So when you get to the Rocket Lawyer website,
you'll see a page that resembles something like
what you're seeing on the screen right now,
and all you gotta do to get started is select the state
where your business is gonna be located in
or wherever you're gonna be doing business,
and then you have to select the business type
that you're gonna be using.
And since I'm in Michigan, and most of the business I do
is in Michigan, I would obviously select Michigan
right here on the left, and for the business type,
again, you can choose LLC, non-profit, C-Corp, or S-Corp.
I'm gonna go ahead and click that,
and then we'll click on Get Started.
Go ahead and we'll just start by putting in
my first and last name and phone number here,
and we'll go ahead and click continue.
And my business address.
This is where you'll put whatever your business address
is gonna be, so I'll go ahead and do that here.
Go ahead and click Continue.
As you can see here, it shows the state
and the entity type that I selected originally,
but if you wanted to change that for some reason, you could.
But I'm not going to do that.
Go ahead and click Continue,
and then Company Name.
This is where you're just gonna choose
whatever you want your business to be called
or whatever you want your entity name to be,
and keep in mind, the name you choose
has to be a name that nobody else is currently using.
So for example, if I just wanted to use Seth's Real Estate,
I'm only gonna be able to get that name
if there's nobody else in the State of Michigan
that is currently using that name.
Just keep that in mind.
Whatever name you're gonna choose,
it has to be something that nobody else is using.
In company description,
you'll just have to explain what your company does.
We'll say real estate investing, like that,
and then the industry,
obviously this is a real estate company.
Will the primary contact be an owner of the LLC?
Now, keep in mind, say, if you had your own lawyer
that was gonna handle all this stuff,
you could put them down as the primary contact,
but most people watching this video are probably
going to be doing this whole process themselves,
so I would imagine a lot of people,
including myself, would put their own name as the contacts.
I'm gonna say Yes,
and then, are there additional members
of your LLC you'd like to identify?
So, say, if you've got a company with lots of different
owners or title officers or anything like that,
this is where you would start to enter in that stuff.
Say, for example, if a husband and a wife
are gonna own and operate the LLC 50-50,
this is where you could add that information.
Again, in my case, this is a single member LLC.
It's just me.
So I'm gonna say No, click Continue.
And then how fast do you need to file in your state?
I am in no hurry to do this.
This is just an example that I'm doing,
so I really don't care about speed.
But if for some odd reason, you needed this like,
immediately, you also have the option
of doing this obviously and making it go faster.
So, just gonna say no rush and click Continue,
and then how would you like to get your new Tax ID number?
This is something, again, if you wanna take the hands-off
approach and not mess with any of this stuff,
Rocket Lawyer can do this for you,
if you wanna pay 'em an extra 60 bucks.
However, just so you know, it's actually very easy,
and it's free to get your tax ID number.
All you have to do once your registration is complete
is go to the IRS website and do this on your own,
and I'm actually gonna include a link to exactly
where you need to go beneath this video.
So if you wanna skip this whole thing
and just do it yourself, be sure to check out that link
and you can handle this step
once the registration is complete.
So I'm gonna click this one here, click Continue.
And then do you want a corporate kit
and seal for your business?
No thanks for me.
And then at this point, you can either proceed
just by paying for this service with Rocket Lawyer,
or, if you wanna sign up for a subscription
with Rocket Lawyer, you also have that option too,
and I've actually got a number of different videos
that talk about some of the other things that Rocket Lawyer
does, and it's actually a pretty useful service
if you ever need to, like, create contracts or deeds
or loan agreements or anything like that.
They have a massive library
of all these different state-specific legal forms,
and they don't just give you a template.
They actually walk you through, step-by-step,
how to complete every form in its entirety
by doing this same kind of questionnaire approach
so that nothing gets missed.
I use it, and I think it's awesome.
But obviously, you don't have to do that.
If you're just here to form an entity,
you can totally just take this approach, too.
So, whichever way you wanna go,
just select that and move forward.
In this next step, we have the option of using Rocket Lawyer
to act as our registered agent,
or we can just act as our own registered agent.
Just so you understand what that means,
every business entity in every state
has to have some person identified as the primary contact.
I'm acting as the registered agent for most of my LLCs.
However, I can tell you, I do one have one LLC
where I have hired Rocket Lawyer to act
as my registered agent, and it does work pretty well.
Basically, you don't have to think
about any of this annual renewable stuff.
They just handle it for you.
The state sends all of these annual notices to them,
so you don't even have to think about it.
It's also a nice thing, say, for example,
if you wanted to keep your anonymity or personal privacy
and you don't want your personal name
associated with your business entity,
if for some reason, you just don't want people to find you
as they're looking for your company,
this is one way to do that,
because if somebody searches for your business entity name
on the state website, they're not gonna find your name
as the registered agent.
They're going to find these guys.
This is totally not a requirement,
but if, for some reason, you think that would be helpful,
to have them acting as your registered agent,
that service is available too.
So in this case, I'm gonna leave it at this
and move forward.
And then once you get to this step, it just gives you
a summary of everything you've put in so far
and what all the basic details are.
As long as it all looks good,
you can go ahead and click Continue.
And then it's pretty simple.
You just have to put in your,
you know, first and last name, credit card information.
So we'll go ahead and do that, click Continue.
And there we go, purchase is complete.
And at this point, Rocket Lawyer's gonna take over
and compile all the necessary information and submit this
to the state of Michigan and basically handle everything
for me until the process is done.
Now, one thing to keep in mind,
whether you're registering for an LLC
or a corporation, it's generally a really good idea
to put together what's called an operating agreement
if it's an LLC or bylaws if it's a corporation.
It's basically a document that outlines
who owns and controls the entity, and this is something
that, if you're ever trying to go and do a real estate
closing or get financing or anything like that,
you're gonna have to provide this document as evidence
of who has the authority to sign
on behalf of the business entity.
In most cases, it's not like a life-or-death thing
where you must do it immediately; however,
if you're planning to actually do some business activity
with this entity you just created,
it's a pretty good idea to do that.
And I think most legal professionals would recommend
that you do this sooner rather than later.
And just so you know, conveniently,
Rocket Lawyer can help you create these documents,
and it's a very, very easy process.
If you sign up for a subscription to Rocket Lawyer,
they make it very, very easy to put this together
just by going through a similar questionnaire process
and that document gets compiled for you.
I'm gonna include links beneath this video
to both the operating agreement and the bylaws,
if that's something you wanna do.
So be sure to check that out.
I've also got a video that shows you exactly
how to create an operating agreement with Rocket Lawyer.
So if that's something you wanna do, just keep that in mind.
I'll have links to all that stuff beneath this video.
So, anyway, I hope that was helpful.
Hopefully this illustrates just how easy it is
to create your own business entity.
It's not hard at all, especially with a service
like Rocket Lawyer that helps you
connect the dots and simplify the process.
Be sure to check these guys out if that's something
you wanna do, and again,
I have an affiliate link beneath this video.
I do get a small commission from that if you go
through this process through that link,
but obviously, no pressure.
Just use this if it's something
that's gonna be helpful to you.
Thanks a lot for watching.
Glad you stuck with me,
and hopefully I'll see you again in the next video.