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Poll: Do you have your own company?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#21

Post by modoc »

At the time of writing this 262 responses and 0 "life style" business. That seems pretty nutty to me. Maybe "high growth" captures more than how I read the poll author's intent, but 91 of you are chasing funding/VC/big exit and 0 of you are building a profitable business that can fund its own growth that you enjoy and want to keep control over?

FWIW I'm 7 years in on my fully bootstrapped, profitable, strongly growing, multi-million dollar business, and couldn't be happier.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#22

Post by jasallen »

modoc wrote: post #21

At the time of writing this 262 responses and 0 "life style" business. That seems pretty nutty to me. Maybe "high growth" captures more than how I read the poll author's intent, but 91 of you are chasing funding/VC/big exit and 0 of you are building a profitable business that can fund its own growth that you enjoy and want to keep control over? FWIW I'm 7 years in on my fully bootstrapped, profitable, strongly growin…

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always considered "lifestyle" business to refer to something that pays your salary, but that doesn't really grow beyond maybe hiring an admin or two. Something like an Insurance Agent type of scope.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#24

Post by austenallred »

modoc wrote: post #21

At the time of writing this 262 responses and 0 "life style" business. That seems pretty nutty to me. Maybe "high growth" captures more than how I read the poll author's intent, but 91 of you are chasing funding/VC/big exit and 0 of you are building a profitable business that can fund its own growth that you enjoy and want to keep control over? FWIW I'm 7 years in on my fully bootstrapped, profitable, strongly growin…

It's also the 4th of 4 options. I realize I didn't even see that option before I responded.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#26

Post by will_brown »

megaframe wrote: post #19

In California, an LLC is treated like an S-Corp and you get charged the Corporate tax rate in addition to paying your regular income tax. Unless you feel the name of your company requires the protection of an LLC and make enough to justify the 8.84% (minimum of $800) additional tax, skip it.

Allow me to expand on this a little:

Anything an LLC pays as "regular income" is an expense to the LLC and is not taxable at the LLC level, with the exception that the LLC will have to pay payroll taxes. Of course the wage earner will pay both Federal and if applicable State income taxes.

An LLC has flexible tax structure, and at the federal level may be taxed as: 1. a sole proprietorship; 2. a partnership; 3. a C-corporation; and 4. a S-corporation.

An LLC may provide legal protection (limited liability) to its owners; however, that protection is generally lost when it is a single member (only a single owner) LLC.

You are correct that the California franchise tax (minimum of $800 annually) is wildly expensive compared to annual compliance filing fees in other states.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#27

Post by dmsinger »

I originally formed my s-corp for contracting. I was in and out of places and it was a lot easier from almost every angle (getting paid, paying taxes).

I wound up getting full-time position eventually, but continued building my own websites. The s-corp acts as the corporate umbrella they all fall under. Maybe it'll be a "real" business one day, but it's a moderate one in the meantime, and worth the separation.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#28

Post by matbee »

Quit my F/T job 2 years ago. Got 40k funding from an accelerator. Later received 150k funding. 2 months ago I developed and released a product which is seeing high growth and good revenue! There's 5 of us now, living in the same house. If you're curious, it's a Chrome App for the Chromecast, called Videostream. Waterloo, Ontario

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#29

Post by will_brown »

modoc wrote: post #21

At the time of writing this 262 responses and 0 "life style" business. That seems pretty nutty to me. Maybe "high growth" captures more than how I read the poll author's intent, but 91 of you are chasing funding/VC/big exit and 0 of you are building a profitable business that can fund its own growth that you enjoy and want to keep control over? FWIW I'm 7 years in on my fully bootstrapped, profitable, strongly growin…

I added the life style business well after the post began based on the suggestion of one of the comments.

Re: Poll: Do you have your own company?

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

megaframe wrote: post #19

In California, an LLC is treated like an S-Corp and you get charged the Corporate tax rate in addition to paying your regular income tax. Unless you feel the name of your company requires the protection of an LLC and make enough to justify the 8.84% (minimum of $800) additional tax, skip it.

An LLC with one member can choose to be treated as either a disregarded entity (sole proprietorship) or corporation for tax purposes, an LLC with more than one member can choose to be treated as either a partnership or a corporation for tax purposes. The default is disregarded entity or partnership (depending on whether the LLC has more than one member), and the election to be taxed instead as a corporation is made federally by filing with the IRS, the California tax treatment is based on how the LLC has chosen to be treated federally.

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/businesses/bus_structures/LLCompany.s...

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