- Hey everybody, this is Seth.
And today I'm gonna be taking you through the process of
how to set up your own LLC or corporation.
And this is something that I think a lot of people get
a little intimidated by, especially if they're new
to any kind of a business or entrepreneurial endeavour.
It's frankly not that difficult or complicated.
It's really pretty easy, honestly.
And so, just to show you how easy it is,
I'm gonna take you through the process that I would be
going through today if I had to start over right now.
And if I had to start my real estate business
all over again, I would do pretty much the same thing
in that I would create an LLC.
And the reason I'd do that is because,
I'm the only owner.
It's just a single member company.
And it's also just kind of an ideal entity when it comes
to holding a real estate, for a number of reasons.
I'm not saying you have to do that, that's just sort of
for my particular situation an LLC has always made
the most sense.
So, there's a number of different services out there.
There's ones like LegalZoom, there's also this one here
called MyCorporation.
I just think it's a really, you know,
pretty straight forward, simple, and very inexpensive
way to get your company up and running.
And I'm just gonna take you through the exact
stages of the process.
And you would just go here
to where it says get started now.
So we'll click on that.
And then the next page is gonna look something like this.
And it gives you a bunch of options here.
Again, I'm doing an LLC so I'm just gonna hit this drop down
and click on this.
And then, the state in which I'm doing it
is Michigan.
So go down there.
And again, this is one of the areas where MyCorporation
is really viable.
Because every single state has a slightly different
way that they go about doing this.
Every state has a different form that looks different
with different fees, and different...
I mean it's just, it's confusing.
So rather than having to learn that,
MyCorporation will make it much more user-friendly
to get this done without causing you any stress or anxiety
along the way.
So anyway, LLC, Michigan, and then,
I'm gonna be going down here to
this option here, the cheapest option.
And the reason I'm picking that one is because I just
don't really need any of these other services.
I would say if anything might be worth your consideration
might be, Registered Agent services, like for example,
if you want to sort of keep your anonymity and not let
the public know who you are, or not let your personal name
be tied to the company.
I mean, that would be one benefit of that.
It also just takes a very tiny little bit of work
out of your hands.
And then, Employer ID Number.
I would say that might be worth it,
but as I'm gonna show you in a link
in the blog post here,
by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube
you can click the link beneath this video
to see the blog post I'm talking about.
But I'm gonna show you a link in this blog post
that goes right to the IRS website
and allows you to register for your
Employer Identification Number for free.
So, because of that, you don't have to click this.
And then also, Operating Agreement.
That might be something that you would need
if you had multiple owners of the company,
or if you knew that you were gonna be applying for a loan.
A lot of times lenders will ask
for your Operating Agreement.
However, I will say, if you are the single member
of your LLC, it's very easy to get that done.
Usually with like a one page affidavit.
So if you're just a single member like I am,
it's probably not necessary at this point.
But if you were gonna have a more complicated entity
with multiple owners, then it's something you would
probably want to consider.
And you would want to click on this right there.
But again, I'm not doing that.
And this cost here is automatically added.
And then I'm just gonna go down here and hit continue.
Okay, now in this section, this is just sort of a
standard sign up form.
So I'll just go ahead and fill out all the information here.
And then once that is filled out, you will scroll down here
to fill out your LLC name.
And one thing to keep in mind here is that,
in some ways this is similar to when you're trying
to register for like a domain name for a website.
And what I mean by that is,
a lot of times, like all the most generic names
that you would think of are already taken.
So as a result, they're gonna ask you
to put in three choices.
But just keep in mind, the names that you choose here
should be a little bit unique if you can manage.
So just for the purpose of this example
I'm gonna put here, Test Company.
That's my first option.
And the second one we'll just say,
Easy Company.
And then the third one, we'll just say,
Example Company.
Preferably, my first choice, Test Company,
if that's already taken, then they would go down to
Easy Company, if that's already taken,
they'll go to Example Company.
And then down here where it asks,
Will you be conducting a business under a different name
than your LLC name?
And what they're getting at there is,
is my actual company name that I'm gonna put on my
business cards and my website,
is it actually gonna be Test Company,
or is it gonna be, you know
ABC Properties or something like that?
When I first started my company years ago,
my intent was to actually do business under the
actual name that I filed for.
And so I didn't have to do this.
But if that's something you plan to do,
just so you know, you would wanna click yes here.
But again, I didn't.
So, I'm gonna click no.
And then moving on, LLC Business Address.
I've actually talked about this a couple times on the blog,
but if you don't already have one, it's not a bad idea
to get like a P.O. box or something like that
to act as your business mailing address.
Because, personally, I don't wanna be giving out my
home address to thousands of people when I'm doing
direct mail campaigns and stuff like that.
This address that I'm putting here, for example,
is not my home address.
This is an actual P.O. box through a store called Pak Mail.
So, just so you know,
if you don't already have one of those,
it's a bad idea to do it.
Not saying you have to, but that would be my advice
if I were you.
So, you'll go ahead and fill that in.
And then, Michigan Registered Agent.
Again, this is to let MyCorporation act
as my registered agent.
And, I'm not gonna do that, just cuz it's 120 bucks
and not that important to me, so I'm gonna say no.
But if you wanted to for some reason,
totally fine, go ahead and do it.
Continue.
In this section of the process, it's listing all of the
members of the company.
And again, in my situation, I am what's called
a single member LLC, which means it's just me,
and I'm the 100% owner of it.
So in this case I'm done.
Now in this section right here, there's not a lot
that I need to do with my particular situation.
All I would really fill out here, is down here.
I'll say, Real Estate Holding Company.
Go ahead and continue.
Now in this section, again,
I know how to take care of my own tax ID number,
so I'm gonna click on this thing,
saying I'll take care of it myself.
And, in this section down here,
I'm just gonna say no.
And then I'm going to continue on.
And then for this part here, for the state filing,
I'm just gonna do the standard,
I'm really not in a rush on this.
For these items down here, the annual report.
In the state of Michigan the annual report is,
I think it's about 25 bucks.
And I know how to do that and I do it myself every year.
If you don't know how to do that
and if you have no idea what's going on in that area,
then feel free to keep that checked.
But again, since I know how to do this myself,
I'm gonna just check this one right here.
And then Customized Operating Agreement.
I don't need it for my purposes, so I'm gonna say no.
My Corporate Vault, I'm gonna say no to this as well.
Business License, I don't need a business license
for what I do, so I'm gonna say no to that.
And then MyIncGuard, I'm gonna be saying no to this as well.
And then Maintain My Business, I'm gonna say no there.
And Michigan Registered Agent, again I already said no
to that, so I'm just gonna keep it that way.
And then I do not need any of these things either,
so I'm gonna hit continue.
Okay, so here's our order summary.
As you can you see, I already said no
to pretty much everything, so there's just a lot of
zeros there that aren't tallying up.
Total is 153 bucks for this order.
And really, just so we kinda understand the costs here.
If I were to try to do this myself without any help
from an attorney, without any help from MyCorporation,
if I knew exactly which forms to file,
and if I wasn't afraid of screwing anything up,
or any of that.
I would just be paying 50 bucks.
And really the extra cost that you're paying
for that ease of use,
is this right here, this 69 bucks.
And then also this 34 bucks for shipping and handling.
So, just so you know, that's kinda the difference between
if you were to go it alone, verses using this service.
And again, if you were gonna use an attorney,
you would be paying a minimum of a few hundred bucks.
Probably more, depending on
the complexity of your situation.
All in all, MyCorporation is not a bad deal.
It's a pretty user-friendly way to get the job done.
Hit continue here.
And then we've just got all this information here again.
Just kinda go down here.
Make sure it all makes sense.
And, yep! Everything looks good.
And then down here I'm gonna have to agree.
And put my initials there.
And then we'll go ahead and hit continue.
And then we'll just go ahead and fill all this stuff out.
And then once that's all filled in,
we'll scroll down here and hit submit.
And then this next page is gonna ask for a bunch of stuff
and I'm gonna go ahead and say no to all of it.
Don't want anything else.
And then we'll hit continue.
And that's pretty much it.
A couple things that you'll wanna just keep
in your back pocket are, this phone number right here,
and again, you'll have that when you print of your receipt.
And then also, you click this link up here that says,
How long will my order take?
And you know, it just specifies that our ability to complete
orders is dependent on the speed of the state offices
where you're forming your company.
So, depending on how fast the state moves,
that's going to determine how quickly your LLC
registration is finalized and how quickly they can
get everything back to you.
And again, you go ahead and check on the
status of your order by calling them at any point.
And then, once that's complete,
the next step would be to actually file for
your Tax ID number.
And I've got more information on that
over on the blog post.
So go ahead and check that out further down the page.
And that is all!
Thanks for checking out the video and just so you know,
I'm actually an affiliate of MyCorporation,
so if you happen to place an order through the link
beneath this video, I will get a small commission for that.
So if you decide that MyCorporation is the right
service for you, and if you feel so inclined to use it,
I thank you in advance very much.
Appreciate your support of the blog.
Thanks again for watching.