[adventured]

> they way it was mentioned in the article made it sound like a business, sorry about that

It is a business. They're selling a service. I don't know why they're protesting at the notion of being a company, they're de facto a business (selling service behind a brand, which they're openly promoting to sell more services).

[novakwok]

Hmmm, maybe calling this a start-up/business might be more appropriate?

(WebP Cloud Services starts by providing a free service of Gravatar/GitHub Avatar reverse proxy with WebP optimization at first, and now it's our first attempt to make a paid services of private proxy as more of our users want this to be a more generally available service.

(And we are currently not a company indeed) ´･ᴗ･`

No intentional protesting at the notion of being a company, just unsure if "company," "business," and "startup" have the same meaning in certain contexts.

[pbiggar]

If you're planning to build a business together, forming the company ASAP is a good plan. Recently talked to some founders who split up before they incorporated, and it was a mess.

[novakwok]

[If you're planning to build a business together, forming the company ASAP is a good plan.]

Do you have any advice in this regard? We do have a preliminary plan to register a European company in Estonia (through e-Estonia) after achieving good revenue to continue our operations.

[pbiggar]

You absolutely must do this BEFORE any sort of revenue. It should be the first thing you do.

You need a company to own things, such as the IP (code, trademarks, website, customer lists), as well as being the thing to which revenue is paid. You'll also find you can't do most things without it (such as get a credit card, office lease, cloud discounts, etc).

Most importantly, suppose you have a cofounder break up when you have just started getting "good revenue" but haven't yet got a company. Who's is that revenue? Who owns the code you wrote? A complete mess.

I don't know anything about e-Estonia, but if they allow you to sign up today, no reason not to do that. In the US (or abroad if you want a US company), Stripe Atlas is a good option. That might work for you too.

[mx20]

It's a bad Idea. Stripe and other Banks want proof that you live there at some point, what I heard. And Tax Authorities usually see that as Tax evasion if you don't have "substance" in this country of cooperation.

[rat9988]

The moment you started providing a paid service you became a business. The legal status, as in company, independant, or whatever, depends on your local laws.