For many people who are involved in domain investing for a hobby, owning and/or operating a company many not be of critical importance. They can be expensive to maintain depending on the location, and if investing in domain names is not producing results, it can be more challenging to keep thorough business records, maintain separate banking accounts and financial records, and it may even be tough to pay the annual fees for operating the business. On the other hand, owning or operating a company can provide many befits, including liability and tax benefits.
I really have no idea how many investors who read my blog own, operate, or co-operate their own domain investment company. Do you?
Unless you have a really ridiculously compelling reason to inc., just go with LLC. If you are in the US, that is.
When I was trying to come up with a name for my online biz, my #1 priority was that the name would well represent or symbolize all things Internet and Web at the same time in a nice appealing way and that the .com was also available to register. After much brainstorming one day (by myself, that is, which strictly speaking is not “brainstorming”), I finally found one that fit both criteria about as well as one could expect with regard to available .coms, and definitely did so rather well. In fact, one day when I was making a wire transfer payment to buy what I regard to be my minimum $50 million dollar value domain, the guy at the financial institution who was handling my wire even raved a bit about how good a business name it was for my field and purpose in a very pleasantly unexpected way. Gotta like when that happens.
All these years later it has been very gratifying to see how the world and technology have evolved so that the name that from my perspective I invented for my business (though apparently it has also been understood at times elsewhere to symbolize my intended meaning, which is a plus), has also become something of a very valuable generic authoritative term referring to an extremely valuable and desirable part of revolutionary global technology. As time goes by it seems that will probably only increase as well. The exact term itself is even in use in the US and other parts of the world, and I did get a phone inquiry a while ago, but I don’t respond to those unless there is an email included.
So yes folks – do get at least an LLC if you are in the US. It makes sense.