Ask HN: When to register an LLC company as an Indie Hacker?
I want to start doing something for myself, because I have had enough with the current market.
Let's assume I build yet another jobs posting website; when will be the right time to register a company for this website?
Any suggestions by experienced indie hackers?
Published in 2022, this chronicle by @stefanos82 details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Pandemic Bubble (2020–2022)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 5 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 10 comments
This may differ in other countries or may have changed in the twenty years since, but after a decade consulting on research projects that paid $30k, I was suddenly contractor to a big national ISP making three times that. Yes, we went a little nuts with buying things, we were young, etc. What I didn't expect was the tax bill! Taxman wanted nearly half!
As a LLC, your personal tax is only on what you pay yourself, your corporation pays way less on the rest.
There are formalities of course, AGM, official seal etc, but in a one-person LLC, these are mostly a joke.
First up: talk to a lawyer, not HN.
But ... as the name suggests, the primary function of an LLC is to make the company subject to liability, not the owner. So if the company is sued and loses, you don't personally have to go through bankruptcy, lose your house, etc.
For any sort of significant online activity, it's definitely worth considering what you might be exposed to. If you can afford it, do it up front. IANAL, etc.
Maybe make $1000 in revenue to prove you’ve got something worth the time/cost of filing LLC paperwork and then talk to a lawyer. I believe for the most part taxes are the same here in the US since it’s pass thru, but same thing, consult a professional.
id do this as soon as you have something to deduct on your taxes or something with any potential liability.
when you want to take the payments until than operate without it. Discalimer: IANAL