Not a lawyer or accountant. Not an expert. This is not legal advice. Real lawyers won't (can't) give specific advice on a public forum. +++++++++++++ THIS IS N

Not a lawyer or accountant. Not an expert. This is not legal advice. Real lawyers won't (can't) give specific advice on a public forum. +++++++++++++ THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE +++++++++++++ 1. If you treat the business like a real business it should offer you personal liability protection. Treat the business as if you had other stockholders besides yourself. Do not treat it like your personal thing. Do not mingle its assets/finances/IP with yours. 2. If you operate the business from California you have to pay the California franchise tax. If you use any California addresses while registering the LLC or for your bank you probably qualify. Doesn't usually pay to play games with taxes. They should have a discounted fee for tiny companies...$800 is annoying. 3. One is probably enough. If you were doing something especially risky (e.g. taking on a big contract for another company) it could potentially be a good idea to have a separate LLC for that. 4. Absolutely maintain an entirely separate account for the business. Get this account at a bank different than your personal one, just to keep it that much more separate. They're cheap/free. 5. It's not that risky, if you're not doing anything risky. But they provide liability protection and some legitimacy. Keep in mind that nothing protects you against criminal liability. Crimes like fraud or tax evasion are just as illegal with or without a company to hide behind. If $800 isn't too big deal to you, then I'd say there's no question you should create an LLC. But if it's a lot, and you're not doing anything crazy, you can probably afford to wait until $800 is a no brainer. Filing an LLC in CA is a trivial one page form[1] and $70. Do it yourself. Search[2] to see if your name is available (choose something that isn't too similar to an existing name). +++++++++++++ THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE +++++++++++++ 1. http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf 2. http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/ http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/