It’s easy enough to start a company in Oregon or in any other state: you make a filing with the secretary of state’s office.  But, what happens next?  We often get this question from lots of local small startups that have a business idea, know the first step, but don’t know what to do next.  So I put together this post as a basic “how-to start an LLC in Oregon.” I picked LLC’s because they are currently popular with small companies, and are relatively easy to form.  I wrote this post specifically for Portland area companies, but this information can easily be adapted to fit companies in other cities.  Anyway, ready?  Here are the bare-bones steps you want to take (or at least consider):

1. Register with the Oregon Secretary of State by filing Articles of Organization
2. Draft an Operating Agreement (especially if there are 2 or more owners)
3. Consider drafting a buy-sell agreement (especially if there are 2 or more owners)
4. Register for a federal employment ID number (tax ID number) and the Oregon equivalent (if you have employees)
5. Register with Multnomah County and/or City of Portland
6. Secure a Worker’s Compensation Account with the Director of the Department of Consumer and Business Services (if you have employees)
7. Register for necessary business licenses.  See licenseinfo.oregon.gov
8. Check the zoning laws at your business location (especially if you plan to work from home!)
9. Obtain any necessary insurance policies
10. Check with the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities about registration of securities requirements (your LLC interests might be considered investment contracts)

Those are the basics, at least from the corporate perspective.  (You’ll also want to consider the tax implications of how you set up your new company, but that’s too much information to fit into this post.)   If you’re interested in finding out which entity to select (step 1), check out this post.  If you’d also like to establish a trademark for your new company, I’ve written more about that here.  Hopefully that helps guide the way for some of you aspiring entrepreneurs out there.

Tags: llc, oregon, portland, starting a company

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Corporate, LLCs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.