Seattle startup?

November 21, 2010 6:47 PM

Setting up a small business in the state of Washington (Seattle). Questions.

Looking to start a Geek Squad-type home/business computer/networking business with a co-worker. Simple setups for wireless networking and (possibly) PC repair/tuneup. The plan, as of now, is to simply put some AdWords and craigslist ads up and take jobs as they (hopefully) come.

What do I need to do to protect myself and be in compliance with state/city regulations?

Would be doing in-home and in-office installs. Is getting bonded required/strongly suggested?

PS I've read similar askme posts, but was wondering specifically about Seattle, WA regulations for business and bonding.

posted by lattiboy to Law & Government (4 answers total)

Best answer: I got a business license in Seattle to do pretty similar work, but it was about ten years ago. In order to get paid by the City of Seattle [who wanted to pay me to do some stuff] I needed to get a city [pretty sure?] business license. I recall it being rather simple. Filling out a form, talking to some people, picking a name. I guess you can now do this online. Read more about that here.

At that time, you didn't owe any additional taxes as long as you made under 50K which I was in no danger of. You have to do your taxes a little differently, but this is not difficult [however make sure you're setting aside about 25% of your earnings for taxes and social security and be assiduous about tracking things that are deductible]. I do not know anything about bonding, though you could do laptops-only and then have people bring them to you (just a personal daydream of mine).
posted by jessamyn at 7:26 PM on November 21, 2010

Best answer: Even if bonding isn't something that you need, the fact that you're worried about your liability means you should, at the least, set the business up as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) rather than a sole proprietor. If you haven't check it out already, look around Washington's Secretary of State website.

You might see if you can find someone with a similar business near but outside of your market that you can take out to lunch to ask about their business.
posted by VTX at 7:54 PM on November 21, 2010

Response by poster: So, what is the cheapest/easiest route to setting up an LLC in Seattle?

thanks for all the help!
posted by lattiboy at 7:59 PM on November 21, 2010

Best answer: You'll want to start here. Since you're going to be the only owner, I don't think you need any documentation aside from what you fill out online but it has been a while since I worked with this stuff. You still might want to investigate the bonding issue. You might find out that there isn't much need for it since the risk is pretty low. If that is the case, then you might want to be bonded anyways because the low risk will mean low cost.

Another piece of advice. Pick a business name that is pretty generic. You can always add a DBA (Doing Business As) later. It helps if you change the focus of your business later on. If you start as "Lattiboy Networking" it starts getting weird if you shift to an A/V installer later. If you start as "Lattiboy's Generic Company Name DBA Lattiboy Networking" it is easy to change it later to "Lattiboy's Generic Company Name DBA Lattiboy A/V" or something.
posted by VTX at 8:18 PM on November 21, 2010