Stellar formation is a website that helps you create the legal entity of your company. From choosing the right type of company, to splitting equity, getting your EIN and paying taxes - our experts guide you and handle the tough parts. Our mission is to make the hard legal process of forming your company easy, educational and fast.
Here's some context of why @maximegermain and I built this:
As a repeat founder, I’ve been through incorporations. I’ve worked with expensive lawyers, cheap lawyers and online services. The problem, always, is this: once my company is set up, I still don’t understand how it works.
The education is missing. When you start a business, you need to understand it. It shouldn’t be this shiny black box that this gifted and intimidating craftsman (a lawyer) made for you. You should understand the ins and outs because you’ll own it and will live in it for a while.
I know many repeat founders who, because they had a hands off approach with a lawyer; still don’t fully understand the key elements of their business years after formation. Another typical case is they need to reform their business with an expensive lawyer a few months into their business because they did something wrong the first time.
That’s why we built Stellar Formation.
@leon_vp@maximegermain Our goal is to be better 🙂. We have many friends who used clerky to set up their business and we heard some of their complaints to we did a few things differently.
1. Pricing : our pricing is transparent, $699 for sole founders and $899 for 2+ founders whether you're doing a LLC or Inc, it includes everything you need to start your business. Clerky's pricing is more challenging to understand (I wasn't able to) - for example they separate out the incorporation (which they advertise as $99 but in reality it's $407 with fees) and post-incorporation ($299). In really you can't use your company if you don't do post incorporation 🙂
2. Education: we've worked hard to build a form that answers all questions you may have as a founder, so we can set you on the right track. This includes helping you understand boards, vesting etc.
3. Focus. we focus solely on incorporations and have no intention to branch out. We hope to get better at it on an ongoing basis.
@kschlenker@leon_vp@maximegermain apologies if our pricing was difficult to understand!
We actually don't do any advertising, but on our pricing page, we list both our fees and the total cost for incorporation. This is the standard way of setting out the pricing for incorporation, and is actually more transparent because you can see exactly where your money is going. If you just give a single number for the cost, it is more difficult for customers to compare services apples-to-apples, because the exact fees are obscured. In our app, we break down the third-party fees in detail so that customers can compare us to other services. This allows customers to be confident that we're not short-changing them at some step in the process and pocketing the difference.
As for why incorporation and post-incorporation setup are separated out - it would actually be less customer-friendly to charge the entire amount up-front. Startups are often not ready to do the post-incorporation setup immediately after incorporation, for a variety of reasons. We would rather let our customers hang out to their funds until they're ready, rather than take it all up-front.
We also felt it was important to convey to people the importance of the post-incorporation setup. Other online services make it seem like incorporation is all you need (because that's all they offer) - but this is definitely not true. So we put a lot of emphasis on the post-incorporation setup, and make it clear that you have to do that after incorporating.
As you can see, our pricing is actually extremely transparent. Although it sounds like it is exactly this transparency that has led to some confusion. It's always good to hear feedback like this - we know there's always room for improvement.
Sorry for leaving such a long comment on your post - just wanted to clarify things in case other people have similar confusion.
@kschlenker I own a Delaware LLC that I used as an independent contractor musician. I'm now a software developer. Can your service help me in transitioning my LLC properly? I know very little about my own LLC as it was set up by a lawyer as you mentioned. Cheers!
Quite expensive for the limited services specially when you compare it to something like Stripe Atlas that not only incorporates but also provides a bank account and payment processing services.
@kushalraha Hey, thanks for your feedback. Stripe Atlas has a packaged standard offer that doesn't fit everyone - they only have Delaware Corporations. Stellar Formation offers also LLCs which works best for a lot of entrepreneurs (especially if you're creating an agency business or any other business that will not raise VC funding).
Most important of all, Atlas is for foreign (non-Us) internet entrepreneurs, whereas we focus on US residents starting any kind of company.
We have been around for 3 weeks and a half and that's what most of our clients loved about us. Let me know if you want to give it a try!
I really appreciate your work, but incorporating a company is easy. Now that we have Stripe Atlas, we can get it for 500 bucks plus, I hope you've heard of gust launch there provide everything from incorporation to bank account to unlimited lawyer support, accounting, book keeping and late they gonna add payroll as well. So yeah, I prefer to go with experts who can actually solve my problem holistically that just a minor part of it. But like I said I like your work, maybe you should become more competitive in pricing our offer more services as a package, in the long run packages will reap good revenue if you can use with right partners and affiliates.
@jerriclynsjohn thanks for your comment! Stripe atlas is still in private beta so I haven't been able to use it, have you been able to create a company with them? Happy to hear your experience. The packaged standard offer doesn't fit everyone - most notably we offer LLCs (does Atlas offer them too?) which works best for a lot of entrepreneurs. Most important of all, Atlas is for foreign (non-Us) internet entrepreneurs, whereas we focus on US residents starting any kind of company.
@kschlenker for sure I can vouch for the streamlined process of incorporation. They have partnered with PWC and orrick to make sure they have a proper standard industry/investor requirements in the documents. Now they don't have LLC, but for sure investors prefer type-c and if you look at it we can always change from LLC but that itself is a cost involved. For incorporating and post incorporation plan "gust launch " is a platform for US entrepreneurs
@unnamedteam Ingvar - thank you for this. We will soon be able to. We're actively working on a way to help non-US residents create their business in the US. We'll post an update on PH once this is ready!
Opal - Screen Time Control
Opal - Screen Time Control
Clerky
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Opal - Screen Time Control
Opal - Screen Time Control
Opal - Screen Time Control