Funtober LLC Created

Funtober is now a Delaware limited liability company.

I attended the SEOmoz meetup in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Wil Reynolds of SEER Interactive spoke about the importance of “do[ing] what real businesses do” in order to rank a website well in the search results. As I started to think about what real businesses do, I decided that I needed to be a real business first! After considering the options, I came to the conclusion that I would register Funtober as a limited liability company in Delaware.

Why an LLC?  It allows me the benefits of a corporation (limited personal liability for business debts) without subjecting the profits to double taxation.  Why Delaware?  It seemed a reasonable choice given that so many businesses are formed there.  The rumor on the street is that it is a very business friendly state.  Plus, I don’t think Delaware is going to be enacting the affiliate nexus tax anytime soon.  It doesn’t even have a state sales tax.  I don’t want to have an online business debating whether our relationship will require them to collect tax from consumers in an additional state.

Registering Funtober LLC in Delaware was actually a pretty painless process. I had looked into hiring someone to do it a few months ago but never pulled the trigger.  I’m a lawyer so it is something that I am capable of doing.  It’s just a matter of whether it is worth the hassle of figuring it out myself or easier to hire someone who handles hundreds of them and won’t screw it up.  With my new determination to create a business, I skimmed through the statute pretty quickly one morning.  Then found Delaware’s guide concerning how to incorporate.  When I learned that Delaware doesn’t require an operating agreement, I made the decision to do it myself.

With the hard decisions out of the way, I did an entity search to ensure that Funtober LLC was available.  Found a registered agent in Delaware through the internet and hired them.  Used the sample Delaware Certificate of Formation plus an example I found online to formally create the business.  Then filled out the Filing Cover Memo.  And mailed it off!

It took about ten calendar days for them to receive and process it.  I wasn’t concerned about speed so I opted for normal processing which they say can take up to three weeks.  On Thursday, I searched for Funtober LLC in the Delaware corporate entity search and found a record.  Very exciting!

Next up is to find an office.  Some time ago, I read Michael Gray’s article about getting a real world address for your website.  It seems like something else that would follow the “do what real businesses do” mantra.  It will probably be a virtual office to start.  But that’s good enough at this point since it’s just me here.

And, the next day, Facebook launched the third largest IPO ever.  I couldn’t help but dream before going back to the day job. 🙂