
Ask HN: What is your experience with Stripe Atlas? - cryptography
How hard is to deal with tax&#x2F;legal issues? How helpful Stripe&#x27;s customer support&#x2F;community is? Is LLC option suitable for a bunch of side projects that one would want to throw under the same &quot;roof&quot;? Would like to hear about your experiences.
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panorama
We ([https://mightyscout.com](https://mightyscout.com)) started off on Stripe
Atlas when they first launched in 2016. We started as a C-corp, as was the
default at the time, but since we never wanted to raise money and didn't want
to incur double-taxation, we converted to an S-corp. Nowadays they offer an
LLC and that's the option we'd take if we started today.

Since 2016, we've had to interface multiple times with lawyers, accountants,
the State of Delaware. Let me be honest: I absolutely loathe dealing with this
kind of crap, I just want to build awesome products.

Stripe Atlas has integrations with various accounting and law firms/services,
to the point where you can email atlas@${firmname}.com and expect a real human
to carefully read your problem and forward it to the right entity. I _love_
that. We recently filed our Delaware taxes incorrectly and received a scary-
sounding notice from the State. I emailed Atlas for help and they figured it
out, pointed me in the right direction, and the person on that end didn't
charge us to make the amendment.

In 2011 I started a company and back then our only recourse was LegalZoom,
which was an expensive and unhappy experience. Now that I've worked with Atlas
for a year and a half, I hope incorporating companies will be just as easy
(and inexpensive) as Atlas has made it.

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dkent
I previously worked at a company that was one of the largest in the online
Incorporation space, and have used a bunch of others. I feel pretty familiar
with all of the offerings and was _exceptionally_ satisfied with my Atlas
experience for a number of reasons:

As folks have said, they are fantastic with support - very responsive and
detail-oriented. The incorporation documents are easily accessible through
their online dashboard & I don't have to go hunting for all of the additional
corporate documentation. Their partnerships, such as with AWS, makes it very
worthwhile if you're going to be experimenting with their partners' services.
They have a great community - forums and slack, along with meetups and dinners
- this, in my opinion, is unparalleled with the other competitors.

My thoughts on the downsides are that some of their partners have hidden fees
- we ended up closing our Silicon Valley Bank account as they have some pretty
steep fees and switched to a no-fee provider (Capital One Spark). The Atlas
team was very responsive in helping us out with this, but it was a bit of a
disappointment to discover this. I recognize that SVB has to make money, but
the "flat rate" for Atlas didn't entirely translate to "flat rate forever" for
me here. Granted this might be more advanced, but we ended up having to use
another platform for managing our cap table. Some other providers, like Clerky
offer this, but I realize that this might not be a priority for development
for the Atlas team to develop.

All in all, would definitely recommend.

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aloukissas
Going through the experience right now for my startup. It needs a _lot_ more
clarity of where you are in the process, what's next, etc. There is a lot at
stake here and one needs reassurance that he/she is not messing anything up.

Also, modifying the application introduces a long turn-around (the system
needs to re-generate the documents). In perspective, a couple of typos cost us
3-4 days in the process.

Side note: signing the paperwork with my trackpad on docusign makes signatures
look like a 3-year-old has signed the contracts. It would be great to be able
to upload a scanned image of my signature (granted, this is a docusign
limitation).

~~~
anthonys
There are many paths you can take if it's a human touch that you are after but
none of those will get you there for $500. If you think Atlas could better
explain that then I agree with your comment but I never once got the
impression that there'd be any hand-holding along the way.

~~~
aloukissas
A simple live webchat on the dashboard would go a long way, for example. If
you haven't done this before (and know the pitfalls of wrong decisions at this
stage), the process seems deceivingly easy. A good example on how to do this
right might be Credit Karma's Tax product - amazing (& proactive) guidance
along the process.

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anonytrary
For simple e-commerce websites, Stripe is a fantastic and simple option. If
you're trying to do anything remotely interesting with money, Stripe probably
isn't for you. Stripe rejected two of our applications for a standard Stripe
usage, and they rejected another of our applications for Stripe Atlas. All
three applications were completely separate products, using payments in
different ways from each other.

They told us that our two applications interfered with their acceptable-use
policy[0]. The application for Stripe Atlas was rejected because it interfered
with the goals of Stripe's bank(s).

Stripe isn't in control of how their product is used, their product exists
almost entirely at the whim of the banking network which Stripe depends on. In
my experience, I have learned to avoid Stripe for any use-case which isn't a
simple E-commerce site. Stripe is incredibly limiting and, evidently, their
primary goal is to avoid risk at the expense of innovation.

We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the
third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit
cards and banking networks. No doubt, using cryptocurrency payments for our
application would be simpler and less limiting. It would just be us and our
customers at that point, which is how it should have been all along.

[0] [https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-
businesses](https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses)

~~~
usaphp
> We ended up folding all three products, and are considering rejuvenating the
> third product with cryptocurrency payments instead of dealing with credit
> cards and banking networks.

So does it mean the problem was not Stripe, but you could not get account in
any of the payment processors due to the nature of your product?

~~~
anonytrary
Braintree supported two of our apps. We didn't try with the third.

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bborn
I created a business through Atlas this spring, and it was great. The
community aspect is really cool and active (it's basically a forum of other
Atlas founders).

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jfornear
I used Stripe Atlas earlier this year to incorporate Chatdog
([https://chat.dog](https://chat.dog)) and it has been a good experience so
far. Stripe's customer support is responsive and helpful. I'd highly recommend
it!

------
maxk42
I always worry about legal implications. Living in California, the legal
advice I see always tells me to incorporate in my state of residence. Could
having a Delaware LLC be seen as tax evasion by the IRS or the Franchise Tax
Board?

~~~
ageitgey
It's totally legal and normal to start a corporation in any state in the US
you choose and Delaware is by far the most common for tech companies.

However, California is especially tax-hungry and will penalize you for doing
this if you live here. If you choose to register in another state instead and
thus avoid the $800 CA fee, they will just charge you an $800 foreign
corporation tax (minimum) for "operating" in California anyway.

~~~
justboxing
> If you choose to register in another state instead and thus avoid the $800
> CA fee, they will just charge you an $800 foreign corporation tax (minimum)
> for "operating" in California anyway.

I did not know that. Just found this regarding what you've stated.
[https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d29c2a6b-4422...](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d29c2a6b-4422-490f-addc-1044c5c0358e)

How is the "operating" state determined for 100% online business, ex: a job
board.

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xstartup
Most people outside the US are probably committing tax fraud in their home
country.

I suggest you take some legal counsel.

CFCs/POEMs/TIEAs will get you busted in no time.

