You Formed Your LLC. Now What? The 10 Steps Nobody Tells You About

Forming an LLC takes about twenty minutes on your state's website. Then you're standing in your new, empty legal entity wondering why nobody told you what comes next. Here's the sequence, in the order that prevents rework.

1. Get your EIN (free, 10 minutes)

Your Employer Identification Number comes directly from the IRS at irs.gov — free. If a website charged you for one, that was a middleman fee, not a government fee. You'll need it for everything below.

2. Open a business bank account

This is the single most consequential early step, because mixing personal and business money undermines the liability protection you just paid for (lawyers call it "piercing the corporate veil"). Bring your articles of organization and EIN. Free business checking exists at most credit unions and several online banks.

3. Set up bookkeeping before the first sale

Cash-flow problems show up in 82% of small business failures. You cannot manage what you don't track, and reconstructing six months of transactions in April is misery. Wave is free; QuickBooks is the standard. Pick one, connect the bank account, done.

4. Check your local licensing

The LLC is state-level; licenses are usually local. Most cities have a business licensing page — a 15-minute check now avoids a fine later. Some industries (food, childcare, trades) have state boards too.

5. Write the one-page plan

Not a 40-page business plan — one page: who you serve, the problem, your offer, your price, how people will find you, and your monthly cost to operate. About 35% of failed businesses die because there wasn't real demand. One page of honest thinking is the cheapest insurance available.

6. Claim the name everywhere

Domain, Google Business Profile, and the two social platforms your customers actually use. You don't need to post daily — you need to exist, consistently named, when someone searches you.

7. Get a minimum credible brand

A clean logo, two colors, one typeface. The bar is "intentional," not "award-winning." Every touchpoint either builds or spends trust, and new businesses have no trust reserves.

8. Launch a real website — small is fine

Three pages beat zero pages and beat a stale "coming soon." Home (what you do, for whom, one clear action), about (why you), contact. A professional 3-page site costs $2,000–$8,000 at market rates; ours is part of a $1,950 launch package. DIY is legitimate too if the result doesn't look DIY.

9. Set up follow-up before marketing

Most first-time founders market before they can capture. A contact form that emails you, a place leads are written down, and a same-day reply habit will outperform any ad spend you're not ready for.

10. Go get the first ten customers manually

No funnel, no ads: direct outreach, your network, local groups, Google Business Profile reviews. The first ten customers teach you what the business actually is. Systems come after signal.

The order matters more than the speed

Every one of these steps unblocks the next. Do them out of order and you'll redo work — the brand before the plan, the ads before the follow-up, the website before the offer. Sequence is most of the game. If you want your specific sequence, our free assessment generates it from your answers in three minutes.