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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Tell me how to start a videogame business! Yes really. No wait where are yo
 
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Admiral101
Feb 20, 2006
RMU: Where using the internet is like living in 1995.
Partnerships with foreign partners are much more complicated than you are thinking. Your British friend is going to need to apply for an ITIN. In the event the LLC actually begins making money you will need to begin withholding money to the IRS on his behalf. If you actually expect to make money, British friend should be filing annually to establish business losses on his return to offset future income.

Not sure how serious of a venture this is. Consider agreeing on some kind of royalty agreement with your British friend as opposed to equity interest.

I realize this is small $'s at the moment but this stuff will come back to haunt you if the numbers get bigger. You will have trouble finding an attorney or CPA with a brain that can intelligently advise/file compliance with a foreign partner involved at a reasonable price.

Again, not sure how serious this is. If it's not serious, why bother with any of this?

* # ¿ May 31, 2018 02:22
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# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:16
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Admiral101
Feb 20, 2006
RMU: Where using the internet is like living in 1995.

ate all the Oreos posted:

Ah crap, that's what I was worried about. I guess I could set something up other than equity, I just want to make sure (in writing) she's fairly compensated and has some control because she's really the one that's doing most of this and it's her passion project. Thanks for the heads up at least.

As far as seriousness, I'm serious enough that I'm willing to put up a few thousand dollars of my own money to get this done (I think a Florida LLC costs $1000 to form, the lawyer's going to be more on top of that, etc.) She's shown the basic gameplay that's been built out so far to a few other game devs and response has been very positive, in fact most recently she showed it to some people who are working on their own game that's similar to this one, that they've been working on for four years, and after seeing our stuff (which really isn't much) they said they thought it "totally blew what we're doing out of the water." I mean I'm not delusional and I doubt this is going to make us millionaires or anything but I think there's definitely something special here that's worth me taking seriously :shrug:

Fair enough. It sounds like you have an idea of what your startup expenses are going to be. Too many entrepreneurs go into this stuff thinking it's just a $80 org document off legalzoom and $150 at H&R block to get compliant with the state/feds.

How do you plan to compensate her during the startup periods of losses? Or you envisioning purely a profits interest?

Best of luck with the venture.

* # ¿ May 31, 2018 04:07
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Tell me how to start a videogame business! Yes really. No wait where are yo