

Ask HN: Legal Side of Starting a Business - jaskiyn

My wife and I want to start an online hobbyist business, wherein we will contribute to a small international gaming community through information, direct services, and advertising assistance.  As this is our first endeavor at starting a business, our biggest roadblock is figuring out what we need to do on the legal side of things before we can begin to accept money.  We have no idea what type of business to register as, so we have been sitting on the first step at legalzoom.  We poked around at findlaw to see if we could find a good local firm that covers our interests and have yet to actually meet with someone in person and establish a relationship.<p>I noticed a lot of people talk about startups on this site, but they focus on the technical aspects.  What are the recommendations on the business law side?  Is there a minimum amount of revenue we need before we should consider it?<p>Thank you for your advice!
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manglav
In my very limited experience, the biggest question is if you will be having
outside investors. This usually means you will need a C-corporation. It seems
like that won't be an issue here. An S-corporation (which is still a
corporation - just a different tax status) is a way to structure yourself as a
corporation without having double taxation - taxed on profit for your
business, and taxed on the wages you pay yourself. I don't recommend a sole-
proprietorship because they have limited protection as a corporation (it's
like personally guaranteeing a loan). Also, you may have trouble with having
it in two people's name.

The way I've learned about this is through various blogs, and Quora. Here is
one of the first ones I began reading, that very clearly explains legal
startup issues, and is very available in terms of time and discussing things
on the phone. [http://walkercorporatelaw.com/startup-issues/choice-of-
entit...](http://walkercorporatelaw.com/startup-issues/choice-of-entity-for-
entrepreneurs/#more-864)

Good luck! It's not too hard to wade through this after reading for a couple
of days.

