Ask HN: Where to start an international SaaS company (as a South African)

[duncanphillips]

I'm a South African looking to start a global tech company, but the business climate for starting a company in South Africa makes it a bad option.

What are the options for countries in which to start a business remotely? If anyone has experience they would be happy to share, I would love to hear where folks decided to found and what their experience has been?

Extra context - I'm looking at building a SaaS product where users could be anywhere in the world. I'm also currently trying to bootstrap, and so I'm not working through any VC's or similar.

[sebmellen]

I would look at starting a Wyoming LLC, which is cheaper than a Delaware LLC with a lot of the benefits, just lacking some of the clout.

You can spin up a new entity quite quickly at https://wyobiz.wyo.gov/Business/RegistrationInstr.aspx. The LLC will be a passthrough entity by default, absolving you of US tax, and making any income earned taxable in your current jurisdiction (ZA). Wyoming state tax is 0 if you have no assets in the state (you will not).

You'll need someone with a social security number to help you set up an EIN with the IRS (basically the US version of a tax ID. You can do this yourself if you have a social security number here: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe..., but given you're international you'll need to use a service like this: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/start-a-business/ei... (not an endorsement).

Then you'll want to set up a bank account with a service like Mercury (https://mercury.com), and a merchant account with a processor like Stripe or Braintree.

Obligatory - I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

Happy to chat further if you want to ping me at my bio contact details.

[duncanphillips]

Thanks for the suggestion. I worked in the US for a year, so I did get a SSN then, but I'm not sure it would be usable for starting a company, so I would probably need to look at using a start-your-business agency like you suggested.

Mercury looks interesting, I haven't seen them before, will take a look.

[joshxyz]

can stripe atlas or clerky.com help on this? im curious

[sjducb]

There are a lot of factors to consider. This is quite a good overview.

https://nomadcapitalist.com/entrepreneurs/best-country-onlin...

Instinctively I would agree with the blog and say Georgia. Lithuania is a strong option too, especially if it's fintech.

However your most likely failure mode is that no-one uses your SAAS. I would just make it, start operating out of a personal bank account, then worry about registering it and making it official when youre making enough money that a taxman might care.

In my first company I wasted so much time registering trademarks and legal stuff. Really I should have just started selling, realized that the buisness model didn't work and failed faster.

[duncanphillips]

Really interesting, I wasn't considering Eastern Europe. The article does a great job talking about a lot of the considerations, but I have a gut feeling that operating from a country where I'm not very familiar with their language and political stability will be harder in the long term.

Its a good point on the trademarks and all the legal stuff, thanks.

[dodoc]

If you haven't already, check with a local friend who knows their tax/legal stuff.

I remember there being a SARS (South African Revenue Service) clause about owning an offshore company that primarily does business in South Africa. Essentially trying to stop people creating offshore shells to get bill their local clients from, as people try to evade tax like that.

It doesn't mean you _can't_ set one up, you just might need to have an extra X or Y in place to make it legal.

They might have a % threshold of how much offshore/local business you need to meet in order for it to be OK. I think ask around first...

[max_]

I would recommend Firstbase[0]

[0]: https://www.firstbase.io/pricing

[duncanphillips]

thanks! do you have experience using them?

[max_]

Not really. But they seem to really take care of the major pain points.