Launching a startup is definitely an exciting time. Your idea is becoming an actual product and/or service, and you will finally get to see your solution help others in some way. That’s pretty cool. And what better place to start a startup than Texas? If you are a female entrepreneur, Texas is a pretty good spot, because Texas is the number one state for female entrepreneurs. You can engage the services of professional companies offering LLC services whilst you focus on your core business.
To get your startup underway and moving in a powerful direction in Texas, we compiled a few essential steps that can serve as a quick guide. Let’s take a deeper look!
1. Choose the type of legal business you want to form
The first essential step in starting your Texas startup is to choose the business type you want to have for your company LLC. You must have a choice between LLC vs LLP. Common choices include, Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, Corporation, and Limited Liability Company (LLC). Most business structures for startups are LLCs.
Is this difficult? Not really, since forming an LLC in Texas is pretty painless due to the number of professional companies offering LLC services, especially for new business owners. They take care of the heavy lifting like filing a certificate of formation, appointing a registered agent, establishing an operating agreement, and much more.
2. Find out if you can legally use your business name in Texas
You may have a pretty clever name for your startup, but if you can’t use it legally, you simply can’t use it. That’s why Texas startup founders need to check to see if your chosen business name is unique enough to be seperate from the other businesses already registered as an LLC or Corporation in Texas.
To make this happen, you need to file your business name with the Texas Secretary of State. If you want to ensure your business name is available, you can find resources on the Texas government website. You can also ask the company filing your LLC to do it as well.
You also want to ensure your business name is available online channels as well, so you can have unified branding for your website. This is actually pretty easy using online platforms like Namecheckr.com. This gives you insight about your name availability on WordPress, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and more.
3. Meet other legal requirements
Once you have an LLC in place and your business name is registered in Texas, you will need to meet a few other legal requirements. This is important, and can ensure long-term growth and success without any unexpected surprises from state and federal government agencies, such as the IRS.
When doing business as a startup, like selling your solution via services and/or products, you will need to set up tax registration and an Employer Identification Number (EIN). This will keep allow you to keep your business in good standing in the eyes of the law, as well as having it in place when expansion moves quickly.
4. Develop your startup brand
One of the most common skipped steps in starting a startup in Texas is putting the branding horse before the cart. What does this mean exactly? It means that many startup founders will jump to creating an online presence and start communicating to their target audience without a clear brand message and story in place.
To have a unified and concise brand, you need to develop a brand mission, character statement, attributes, etc. When you have a core identity, communicating and doing marketing is easier. Make brand building a priority before communicating your message to clients, your team, and the world.
5. Create a powerful online presence and experience
Now that you have the legal stuff out of the way, you can focus on creating a powerful online presence and experience for your startup. This means developing a website that speaks to your startup’s mission, objective, and most of all, your target audience. Part of this is ensuring you have a web design and SEO tactics in place that Google will love to rank.
The other side of this coin is the actual audience connection aspect. This is where user experience (UX) plays a big role. Simply getting users to your website is only half the battle. You need to make them engage with your content once they are there, and convert them.
Implementing user experience best practices like fast page load time, easy site navigation, great visual content, video testimonials, CTA buttons, and more are a must in today’s digital age. By combining what Google loves and what your target audience can’t resist, you have a winning online presence and experience strategy.
In conclusion . . .
The above five essential steps to starting a startup in Texas are not the only important elements to have in place. There are certainly a lot more, but these are a few of the most important. From getting your business formed as an LLC to creating a strong online presence, take your startup to the next level.