Stripe Atlas for LLCs • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#161

Post by geofft » Tue, May 01, 2018, 12:08 AM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #127

nodesocket wrote: post #61

> Is organized in Delaware, the jurisdiction of choice for many new LLCs. Be aware that if you are "doing business" in California which means you live there you also have to file as a California foreign entity and pay the absurd anti-small business flat tax of $800 a year. This also does not include your state income tax liabilities in California. Just because the LLC is formed in Delaware does not mean you don't hav…

CA in general makes absolutely no sense to start a business in. There are zero arguments for starting a business in CA. Oregon, Washington, Texas, Colorado, etc. are all objectively better choices. Even if you're interested in raising money from SV investors you're far better off locating in Seattle, Denver, Portland, Austin, etc.

"I have social connections and support structures in California" sounds like a pretty good reason to me. Starting a business, paying extra taxes, and being willing to stick with it for the long term sounds better than being lonely and giving up 6 months in or deciding not to start it at all.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#162

Post by patio11 » Tue, May 01, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

throw9991999 wrote: post #157

patio11 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10k isn't the high end, either.

Any ballpark figure on how much it costs with Atlas?

Starts at $500. We can't quote a firm price because you can do things in the company (it is your company, after all) which make it more complicated. There are an infinite number of contracts that a company could hypothetically sign, some of which have interesting implications for conversion. Those contracts have to be read and interpreted; that isn't going to be free for a lawyer.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#163

Post by nodesocket » Tue, May 01, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

pbnjay wrote: post #155

nodesocket wrote: post #61

> Is organized in Delaware, the jurisdiction of choice for many new LLCs. Be aware that if you are "doing business" in California which means you live there you also have to file as a California foreign entity and pay the absurd anti-small business flat tax of $800 a year. This also does not include your state income tax liabilities in California. Just because the LLC is formed in Delaware does not mean you don't hav…

Watch out - Tennessee has an 6.5% excise tax on LLCs which is essentially an income tax if you're self employed. https://www.tn.gov/revenue/taxes/franchise---excise-tax.html

-- Update: Buried deep in the depths of TN website and using the most confusing and counterintuitive language ever assembled is this article:

https://revenue.support.tn.gov/hc/en-us/articles/204647155-W...

Essentially it says if I am a disregarded entity for federal tax purposes I am exempt from both franchise and exercise taxes.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#164

Post by sparky_z » Tue, May 01, 2018, 12:49 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #100

patio11 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.azlo.com/

This is in no way a criticism of anything and isn't directed at Stripe or any employee, just an honest question to the general HN community: How does Azlo make money? If I'm going to trust my accounts anywhere, I like to know at least something about their business operations. Azlo is completely fee-free according to their FAQ. They also say they require zero minimum balance and have no ATM fees at 55,000 partner ATM…

They don't make money on the interest on the minimum balance, they make money on the total balance. True, for some customers this will be very low or zero. But as long as some of the companies they work with have money in their accounts (not an unlikely state of affairs), they can make their money from those accounts.

As long as they've set up their underlying tech stack such that the marginal cost of an extra account is nearly zero, then offering accounts with no fees or minimum balances is useful way of attracting customers, many of whom will grow into good sources of revenue.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#165

Post by sparky_z » Tue, May 01, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #132

leesalminen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d always thought that a bank’s primary revenue source was from loans. Banks are able to actually write more loans (and charge interest) than cash in the bank [0]. Profit ensues. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

That's something I forgot to stick in there: it looks like Azlo doesn't do loans either. There is literally no way for them to make any sort of money being fee-free, not offering loans or credit cards, and not having minimum balances. It's all the good will of BBVA, which we know how far the good will of a major bank gets you.

They don't need to write their own loans. They can just open an interest-bearing account with a bank that does and park the money there.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#166

Post by wbmstrmjb » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #100

patio11 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.azlo.com/

This is in no way a criticism of anything and isn't directed at Stripe or any employee, just an honest question to the general HN community: How does Azlo make money? If I'm going to trust my accounts anywhere, I like to know at least something about their business operations. Azlo is completely fee-free according to their FAQ. They also say they require zero minimum balance and have no ATM fees at 55,000 partner ATM…

Hi @freehunter, as a fellow skeptic, I can appreciate your question as to how Azlo makes money if there are no fees. As an executive of Azlo, I can tell you that there are many ways Azlo can and will make money without having to charge fees. Some have been mentioned here (interchange and deposits) and some are coming down the pipe (lending, international payments, etc). Many accounts will be lost leaders in that their deposits and their activity do not give us any substantial revenue. But having LLCs and C-Corps (who tend to have larger balances and do more transactions) will make it very worthwhile. Rest assured that the banking fees you are used to with other banks are not and will not be there with Azlo.

Also, we are a banking platform built for developers. Tech-savvy customers will have access to their accounts through our recently announced API portal https://www.azlo.com/tech/ (scroll down to 'Coming soon')

Hope you give us a shot and provide feedback for our API beta!

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#167

Post by annerajb » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

I wish atlas allow transferring over our Delaware c Corp to them. They launched around 3 months after we incorporated :(

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#168

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:37 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #120

patio11 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context for folks who haven't encountered vesting before: vesting is an arrangement where, instead of getting all of your ownership up front, you earn it over time. For example, you might have a fairly common arrangement in Silicon Valley where you get 1/4 of your equity after working for a year and the remaining 3/4 over the next 3 years. This pre-commits to what happens regarding ownership if someone leaves 18 mont…

We paid a lawyer to put together an OE for us at Latacora (we have 10-year vesting). I assumed it would be complicated, but, nope, it works pretty much the way it would in any company: you vest equity over time, and if you leave halfway through your vesting term, you keep half your equity. The only LLC-specific wrinkle I think we ran into is that we had to spell out that vested equity wasn't equivalent to a pro-rata…

What was the motivation for 10 year vesting vs the more widely used 1 year cliff/4 year vest out?

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#169

Post by tptacek » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:39 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #168

tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We paid a lawyer to put together an OE for us at Latacora (we have 10-year vesting). I assumed it would be complicated, but, nope, it works pretty much the way it would in any company: you vest equity over time, and if you leave halfway through your vesting term, you keep half your equity. The only LLC-specific wrinkle I think we ran into is that we had to spell out that vested equity wasn't equivalent to a pro-rata…

What was the motivation for 10 year vesting vs the more widely used 1 year cliff/4 year vest out?

We're a consulting firm. We looked back at Matasano and thought about how value was added over the life of the firm, and 4 years didn't nearly capture it. If we do product stuff, we'll just spin that out into a separate entity, and that would probably be 4/1.

Re: Stripe Atlas for LLCs

#170

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #169

toomuchtodo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the motivation for 10 year vesting vs the more widely used 1 year cliff/4 year vest out?

We're a consulting firm. We looked back at Matasano and thought about how value was added over the life of the firm, and 4 years didn't nearly capture it. If we do product stuff, we'll just spin that out into a separate entity, and that would probably be 4/1.

[deleted]