Hour Zero · Pre-Work · The 8-Hour Business Launch Master Plan
00

Legal & Banking Foundation

The entity, EIN, bank account, and card need to be put in place to facilitate research — so the 8-hour clock is spent on the work that actually moves the business.

The Issue

Historically, founders have paid lawyers for entity formation, EIN application, and patents. Accountants or bookkeepers are arranged with high fees. New online entities to help streamline and cheapen that process are listed below. We start Hour 1 with a real entity, a real bank account, and a real card.

Starting Entities and Accounts Completed
Entity & Tax
Filed via Bizee, registered with the State 1/15/26
ELJ Ventures LLC
Articles of Organization filed 1/15/26 through Bizee.com
EIN ##-3644697
IRS name control: ELJV. Use this on every W-9, payment processor application, and ad platform tax form.
Operating Agreement
Stored as PDF (current execution copy) and Word doc (for future amendments)
Banking Resolution
Authorizes account opening and signing authority — already used to open the checking account
Statement of the Organizer
Bizee's resignation from the filing process — cleanly transfers control to the LLC members
Banking & Spend
Open, funded, ready to plug into Shopify, Stripe, and ad platforms
Business Checking
PNC Checking (account # provided separately). Open and funded. Will be the receiving account for Shopify Payments and Stripe payouts.
Business Credit Card
Active (card # provided separately). This is what we attach to Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, Shopify subscription, and any SaaS we sign up for during the build.
Working Capital · TBD
Budget TBD.
Other Issues to Get Started and Sites for Formation Purposes
Connect payments to bank
Shopify Payments + Stripe → Business Checking
Shopify Payments
Set up during Hour 4 store build. Requires EIN + bank routing/account number. Lower fees than third-party processors on Shopify.
Stripe
Backup processor; required if we add subscription, checkout outside Shopify, or B2B invoicing
Connect card to ad platforms
Done before any ad goes live in Hour 8
Meta Ads Manager
Add card under Billing & Payments. Set a daily spend cap immediately to prevent runaway charges.
Google Ads
Same — billing setup before any campaign goes live
TikTok Ads Manager
Same. See ad_platform_setup.html for full pixel/CAPI/catalog setup.
Bookkeeping from minute one
Capture receipts and categorize spend from the very first transaction
QuickBooks Online
Connect bank + credit card on day one. Auto-categorize, then review weekly.
Xero
Cleaner UI than QuickBooks for Shopify-heavy businesses; comparable price
Or: Excel ledger
Simple two-tab Excel — Income / Expenses — works fine for the first 30 days. Move to QBO once monthly transaction count exceeds ~50.
Founder agreements & equity
Settle this before revenue, not after
Update Operating Agreement
Confirm % ownership, vesting (if any), responsibilities, and decision rights for each of the 4–5 people on the team. Edit the Word doc, re-sign, save new PDF.
Carta
If we ever take outside money or grant equity to a 6th+ person, move the cap table here. Not needed yet.
Clerky
Built specifically for startup founder paperwork — equity issuance, vesting schedules, 83(b) elections, SAFEs. Aimed at venture-ready Delaware C-corps; the tool to know if we ever convert or raise.
Rocket Lawyer
Membership-based; on-demand contracts, NDAs, and attorney Q&A. Useful for ongoing founder, contractor, and supplier agreements without per-hour legal fees.
LegalNature
100+ state-compliant document templates — operating agreements, contractor agreements, NDAs. Low annual cost (~$119/yr); good for cheap operating-agreement amendments.
CoWork Ops Layer · Hour 0
Once payments and bank are connectedCadence: Weekly · Trigger: Monday-morning money pass
CoWork can do, once the business is started
  • Pull Shopify's revenue, refund, and fees report
  • Pull the bank transaction export and credit card statement
  • Reconcile all of it against QuickBooks (or the Excel ledger)
  • Flag anything that looks like a duplicate charge or a subscription we forgot
  • Email the team a Monday-morning cash position with current runway in weeks
Why it matters
  • This single recurring workflow removes the most common reason small ecom businesses fail in year one — losing track of where the money actually went
Setup cost: ~30 minutes once. Weekly human time after that: ~10 minutes to review the email.