I’ve spent the last 19+ years of my professional career writing Government contracts as a Procurement Analyst. I literally get paid to interpret policy relative to different types of Government contracts. I live and breathe red tape. This shouldn’t be a thing to create an LLC, right? But I also knew that the hubs who is an accountant by trade, and partners in a number of LLC’s deals with these kinds of legal entities and associated reporting all the time. In my head, I’m like - delegation time! He takes care of this one, and I’ll work on the fun stuff.
So he submitted the needed information through Legal Zoom for a not so paltry fee of $800. They immediately came back and said the name 29:11, LLC is a no-go. So, after several days of pouting, I figured that this has got to be a non-rushed process (No point botching the name on the first go round), and so I stepped back, regrouped, and settled on a name that had domain availability and social media availability (Both huge I quickly learned if your intent is to have a DTC (Direct to consumer) platform.
Try #2 - 29AND11, LLC. Legal Zoom comes back and says- nope. Hmmm, okay. But I don’t like this answer. I didn’t see anything in the name searches I did with the State of Texas databases with this name or anything super similar….And so now it’s time to really get into the weeds and read the policy behind the name. Enter Texas Administrative Code, Title 1, Part 4, Chapter 79, Subchapter C (AKA snoozefest). Sparing you the details, but what I took away was that I thought Legal Zoom was being just lazy, assuming it was too close to 29:11, and just arbitrarily giving us the thumbs down. Problem is that they wouldn’t submit the application because they said their team had done the research and it was going to be a hard stop. So I just didn’t respond to the Legal Zooms rejection. I mean - they already had my money, and they were never in a hurry to push you to file an alternate name since it was just more work for them…So I left them just to hang out with my money for a bit. Legal Zoom wasted my time (Sorry, not sorry)...
I decided that after reading through the process, and filling out the online application almost to the point that I was ready to hit the submit button, that there really wasn’t much to this. Like barely anything. And all I had to do was submit an application to reserve the name at a cost of $40. If they accepted the reservation, the name was mine, and then I could file the application knowing that as long as my ducks were in a row, the name wasn’t the issue. But now I’m sweating the little details…I like 29 AND 11 better than 29AND11. Enter another name reservation. Which was denied. Why? Because it was too close to my original reservation of 29AND11. I had to rescind my initial request, resubmit the second request, and for an additional $40 the name was mine. 29 AND 11, LLC. AND SCENE.
I finished the application online, and at only $325 for the state issued application (And $80 in name reservation fees, $40 of which was due to my errors) I had saved $395!! Major props go out to the State of Texas - I got all my responses in a number of days, and the LLC certificate in less than 2 days. Legal Zoom on the other hand, still had my $800. I had my LLC with just a little elbow grease on my part. It did however take me two separate one hour calls to negotiate my money back from them. I got transferred and re-transferred, waiting for authorization from this supervisor to issue a refund, and then another number of days till I would ever see the funds.
So….Was this story a bit of a snoozer? Yes. For sure. BUT - I just want you to see that you can 100% do this yourself. Government forms can be intimidating, but I also know that behind every form is policy and every Government employee will adhere to that policy and reference it in their decisions (Policy can work in your favor if you take the time to read it). The Government also doesn’t set astronomical barriers to entry in terms of fees. In most cases, the costs just cover their administrative burden.
So…Go for it yourself!! You can do it!!
So…Go for it yourself!! You can do it!!