Starting a business · Houston, TX

Start a business in Houston — registered, online, and findable.

Starting a business is one idea and about nine errands: register the LLC, get the EIN, buy the domain, set up email, build the site, sort the hosting, claim the Google listing, install the tracking, maybe run the ads. We do the errands, in the right order, in accounts that belong to you from the first day — for owners across Houston and the Greater Houston metro — and we tell you which ones you can safely skip for now.

The order that saves money

How to start a business in Texas, in order

Most first-timers buy these in the wrong sequence and pay to redo half of them. Formation comes before the domain; tracking comes before the ads. Always.

  1. 1

    Decide what you're starting

    A free conversation about the business, not the website. What you sell, to whom, and how they'll find you decides every choice below — and sometimes the honest answer is that you need less than you were about to buy.

  2. 2

    Register the LLC & get an EIN

    Formation first, because the legal name, the registered agent address, and the EIN all feed into the bank account, the domain, and the Google listing. Doing it after means redoing some of it.

  3. 3

    Claim the domain & stand up email

    Register the name to you, point DNS, and get mail working on the domain with authentication in place. Everything from here forward assumes a real address at a name you own.

  4. 4

    Build and launch the site

    The smallest site that does the job, on hosting in your account, with SSL, backups, and a contact form that provably reaches you. Live beats perfect.

  5. 5

    Get found — profile, then tracking

    Google Business Profile claimed and filled in, Analytics and Search Console verified, conversions defined. Tracking goes in before advertising, never after, or you can't tell what the money bought.

  6. 6

    Run ads, if they make sense

    Only once there's somewhere to send traffic and a way to measure it. Start small, cap the budget, and judge it on booked work after 30 days.

What's included

Everything between an idea and a first customer

Take the whole thing or any single piece. Nothing here is bundled to force the rest of it on you.

Registering the LLC

The filings that turn an idea into a business the state and the bank recognize.

  • Name availability checked against the Texas SOS register before you print anything
  • Certificate of Formation prepared and filed with the Secretary of State
  • Federal EIN obtained from the IRS so you can open a business bank account
  • Registered agent options explained — including when you should not be your own
  • Texas franchise tax and Public Information Report deadlines put on your calendar
  • Assumed name (DBA) filings when you'll trade under a different name

Domain name & DNS

The name people type, registered to you, with the records behind it set up right.

  • Name search across available extensions, with the near-misses and typo risks flagged
  • Registered in an account in your name, on your card — never parked in ours
  • Auto-renew and registrar lock on, so nobody loses the business to a lapsed renewal
  • DNS pointed at your site and mail, with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set from day one
  • WHOIS privacy enabled so registering doesn't put your home address on the internet
  • Transfers in from a registrar you're stuck with, or from whoever registered it for you

Business email hosting

you@yourbusiness.com — because quotes from a Gmail address lose jobs.

  • Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 set up on your domain, billed to you
  • Mailboxes, aliases, and shared addresses like info@ or billing@ that route to a person
  • Authentication done properly — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — so your mail reaches inboxes
  • Old mail and contacts migrated in from a personal account without losing history
  • Signatures, forwarding, and phone setup so mail follows you off the desk
  • Admin access held by you, with us added as a collaborator you can remove

Website build & hosting

A fast site that says what you do — plus somewhere reliable for it to live.

  • A site sized to the business: a few pages, a storefront, or a real application
  • Written for the customer you actually want, not filled with placeholder copy
  • Hosting, SSL certificate, backups, and uptime monitoring set up and paid by you
  • Fast on a phone, readable by screen readers, and indexable by search engines
  • A contact form that reaches you and keeps the spam out
  • A short walkthrough of the handful of things you'll want to edit yourself

Google Business Profile & local search

Being findable on Maps and in the local pack, with the listing under your control.

  • Profile created or claimed — including prying back a listing someone else verified
  • Categories, service areas, hours, and services filled in the way Google actually reads them
  • Verification walked through end to end, postcard, video, or however Google asks this month
  • Name, address, and phone made consistent across the directories that feed local rank
  • Review link set up, plus a plain process for asking customers without buying reviews
  • Photos, posts, and the Q&A section seeded so the listing doesn't look abandoned

Analytics & tracking

Knowing which half of the marketing works, before you spend more on it.

  • Google Analytics 4 and Search Console installed and verified on your property
  • Conversions defined as things that matter — calls, forms, bookings, orders
  • Call tracking and form attribution so a lead can be traced to what produced it
  • Consent banner and privacy policy language when you're collecting visitor data
  • A one-page monthly summary in plain English instead of a dashboard nobody opens
  • Ownership of every property in your Google account, with us as an invited user

Getting paid

Invoices, cards, and deposits landing in your bank without you chasing them.

  • Stripe, Square, or Shopify payments wired to your business account, not ours
  • Invoicing and estimates set up in QuickBooks, Wave, or the tool your bookkeeper wants
  • Online booking with a deposit taken up front, when what you sell is your time
  • Sales tax, shipping, and receipt emails configured before your first real order
  • Recurring billing and subscriptions when the revenue is meant to repeat
  • Payout, refund, and dispute flow explained once, in writing, so it isn't a surprise

Keeping it running

The unglamorous upkeep that decides whether any of the above still works in a year.

  • Renewals tracked — domain, hosting, SSL, mail, and the state's annual filings
  • Backups that are tested, not just scheduled, and restorable to a date
  • Security patching and dependency updates on the site and anything behind it
  • Uptime and form-delivery monitoring, so we find out before your customer does
  • A named person to call when something breaks, on a small monthly retainer
  • Everything documented in one handover file you keep, whether or not you keep us

We are not a law firm, and we won't pretend otherwise.

Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or accounting advice. We are not attorneys, we are not a CPA firm, and we are not a registered agent service. What we do on the formation side is paperwork: acting as your organizer, we prepare and file the same public forms you could file yourself, and make sure nothing is missed or filed late. Choosing between an LLC, a sole proprietorship, and an S-corp election, drafting an operating agreement, dividing ownership between partners, or anything with real tax consequences belongs with a lawyer or an accountant — and we will say so plainly at the point you get there, rather than guess and hope. The Texas Secretary of State charges the same filing fee whoever presses submit, so if you'd rather press it yourself, we'll tell you that too.

Running costs

What a live business keeps paying for

Every recurring bill a new business picks up, what it recurs on, and who collects it. These are third-party services you pay directly — we don't resell any of them and there's no markup, so none of it arrives through us.

What How often Who you pay Worth knowing
LLC formation (Texas) One time Texas Secretary of State A state filing fee, the same amount whoever submits it. Our filing work is quoted separately.
Registered agent Yearly An agent service, or nobody Costs nothing if you serve as your own — and puts your address on the public record.
Domain name Yearly Your registrar Premium and short names cost more. Privacy is usually bundled in now.
Business email Monthly, per mailbox Google or Microsoft Workspace or 365. One mailbox is enough to start; add people as you hire.
Website hosting Monthly Your hosting provider A small site sits at the cheap end. The SSL certificate is free either way.
Google Business Profile Nobody. It's free Anyone selling you a subscription for the listing itself is reselling something free.
Analytics & Search Console Nobody. Also free Call tracking is the one add-on here that carries a monthly fee, if you want it.
Payment processing Per transaction Stripe, Square, or Shopify A percentage plus a flat fee per charge. No monthly minimum on any of them.
Google Ads Monthly Google, directly Whatever you cap it at, billed to your card — we'd rather start you small.

We don't publish other companies' prices here — they move, and a stale number on a website is worse than none. Ask and we'll tell you what each one currently runs, along with a fixed quote for our own work.

What can wait

The list of things a new business is told it needs is much longer than the list it actually needs. In the first few months these can all sit still without costing you a single customer:

  • A logo redesign and a brand guideline document
  • A presence on six social platforms you won't post to
  • E-commerce, before you've sold anything by hand
  • A mobile app — a fast website does the job for almost every new business
  • A CRM, until you have enough customers to lose track of
  • A big ad budget, before there's anywhere good to send the clicks

Where this goes next

You own every account

Registrar, hosting, mailbox, Google properties, payment processor — in your name, on your card, with us as a collaborator you can remove in two clicks.

A number before you commit

Our work is fixed-price and quoted up front. Third-party fees are paid by you directly, unmarked-up, so there's no monthly bill hiding a margin.

We'll tell you to skip things

If the site builder covers it, if the ads aren't worth it yet, if you should file the LLC yourself — that's the advice you'll get, and we'll still be here later.

Pick up where you stopped

Already registered, already bought a domain? We audit what exists, fix what's misconfigured, and only charge for the parts you still need.

Questions we get

Straight answers

Are you a law firm? Can you tell me whether I need an LLC?

No, and no. We are not attorneys, accountants, or a registered agent service, and nothing on this page is legal or tax advice. What we do is the paperwork: we act as organizer, prepare and file the same public forms you could file yourself, and make sure nothing gets missed. Choosing between an LLC, a sole proprietorship, and an S-corp election, drafting an operating agreement, or anything with real tax consequences belongs with a lawyer or CPA — and we will tell you plainly when you've reached that line rather than guess.

Couldn't I file the LLC myself for less?

Yes. Texas takes online filings directly, the state's fee is the same whoever submits it, and plenty of owners handle it in an afternoon. We're worth paying when you'd rather not learn the process, when the filing is bundled into getting everything else online, or when a detail — registered agent, assumed name, multiple members — makes it less obvious than the form suggests.

Who owns the accounts when we're done?

You do, all of them, from the first day. The domain registrar, hosting, email, Google Business Profile, Analytics, Ads, and payment processor are all registered in your name and billed to your card. We're added as a collaborator or delegated admin, which you can revoke in a couple of clicks. We don't resell hosting, we don't mark up third-party fees, and we never hold a login hostage.

What does the whole thing cost?

Two separate numbers, and you get both before you commit to anything. Our work is quoted as a fixed price up front, once we know which pieces you actually want — a simple site plus the accounts is a different job from a storefront or an application. The running costs are third-party: domain, hosting, email, and the state filing, each paid by you directly to the company providing it, with nothing routed through us and nothing marked up. The table above lists every one of them and who you pay, so there's no line item you meet in month two.

How long before I'm actually open?

The state filing is typically a few business days once submitted; the EIN is usually same-day. Domain and email are live within hours. The site is the long pole — a week or two for a simple one. Realistically, from first conversation to being findable on Google, plan on three to five weeks, and less if you already have the business registered.

Do I need Google Ads right away?

Usually not. For a local service business, a claimed Business Profile, real reviews, and a site that loads fast will do more in the first quarter than a small ad budget will — and they don't stop working when you stop paying. Ads make sense when you need volume faster than word of mouth delivers, and only after conversion tracking is in place so you can tell what they bought.

I already registered the business and bought a domain. Is this still for me?

Yes — that's most people. We'll pick up wherever you stopped, audit what's already set up (badly configured DNS and mail authentication are the usual finds), and only do the parts you still need. You won't be charged to redo something that already works.

Can you handle bookkeeping, insurance, or my licenses?

Not ourselves. We'll set up the invoicing and payment side and hand clean data to whoever does your books, and we'll tell you which permits and insurance typically apply to your trade so you know what to ask about — but the actual advice comes from a CPA, a broker, or the licensing body. We'd rather point you at the right person than pretend to be one.

What if I outgrow the simple version?

That's the plan. We pick boring, portable tools on day one specifically so a site can grow a storefront and a storefront can become a real application without starting over. When that day comes it's the same shop, the same accounts, and no migration off a platform you were locked into.

Starting something?

Tell us what the business is and how far you've gotten. You'll get the real checklist, the order to do it in, and a number — before you've spent anything.

Get in touch