Ask HN: When should you incorporate your side project?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2018 where @amerf1 convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 5 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
This depends on several factors such as:
1. What are the goals of the project?
2. Are there multiple people involved and do you want a formal corporate structure?
3. Does the project generate significant revenue and will there be tax implications?
4. Are you willing to deal with additional paperwork and overhead?
5. Do you want limited liability if you decide want to borrow money?