ZenBusiness Tutorial: How to Start an LLC with Zen Business in 2026

Key Takeaways

If you want to form your own LLC in 2026, this video is for you. I'm going to walk you through Zen Business and show you exactly how to get your LLC set up today. And I'll actually take you through it step by step. I'll show you what options to choose, how to fill everything out, and what to watch out for so you don't have to redo anything. Yeah, making an LLC can be a little bit complicated, but luckily there are platforms like Zen Business that basically do everything for you. And the best thing is that it costs $0 plus state fees. And just a quick note, I'm not a lawyer or CPA, but I've made tons and tons of LLC's, escorps, CC corps, and this video is just meant to be educational. It's based on the standard LLC process, so your state rules and fees could vary. Anyways, I recommend you guys follow along as I actually go through this video step by step. I'll have a link down below to Zen Business. It's a special link that gets you that $0 plus state fee deal. So, yeah, I just encourage you guys to follow along. You guys can skip to this time code if you just want to do the LLC formation process. But first, I'm going to talk about what an LLC is and why you should actually form one. Okay, so LLC's stand for limited liability company. This is basically a business structure that can help separate your personal assets from your business. So, a lot of businesses, they start just as a sole proprietorship. It's basically a business that's just tied to your name directly. After a while, it can be really important to actually form an LLC to make the business more official. Now, the biggest benefit that comes with forming an LLC is liability protection. So basically, if your business gets sued or it goes into debt, your LLC can actually help protect your personal assets. It's just really important that you don't mix your business and your personal money. And if you do that, then you have that really good protection. Next is going to be tax flexibility, right? So by default, many LLC's are passed through taxed. And this basically just means that profits pass directly to you, the owner. Now, depending on your situation, and I'm not going to go into this too much, you can actually choose a different tax treatment later on. This is called an escorp election and there are definitely some benefits to that but essentially all you need to do is form an LLC and you can elect to be taxed as an escorp later on. Another big benefit is credibility, right? So it can actually make you look more legit because it allows you to open up a business bank account. It's going to look better for vendors on contracts for clients. And yeah, I've felt this a lot. It just feels a lot more official. And lastly, flexibility. So LLC's are super flexible with how you actually can run the business as well as how ownership is set up. Yeah, when I started off in business and doing side hustles, I remember that first big step to where I actually formed an LLC. It felt really great. I was able to open up a business bank account and I just took entrepreneurship way more seriously after that. So, if you're deciding whether or not you should open up an LLC, think about the benefits, right? For most of you guys, I think it could be worth it because yeah, I know it was for me. So, now I'm going to go into the walkthrough portion of the video. And I think the best way to actually go through this video is just copy what I'm doing on my screen. Just do basically what I'm doing on your screen. And yeah, if you follow along step by step, by the end of the video, you're going to have your LLC application basically ready to submit. So, if you guys click on the link down below, it's going to take you to this exact landing page, and this is where you can start your LLC for $0 plus state fees. These state fees are fees that you need to pay anyways. And so, it can essentially be free to use Zen Business. I'll go slowly and explain what each step means in normal English, and also go over some common questions I get regarding LLC formations. Okay, so the first thing you want to do is click on start an LLC. And the first thing it's going to have us select is what state are we forming our business in. So, usually you're going to form in the state where you actually operate the business. Since I'm in California and I operate my businesses in California, I would select California. If you're not sure what state you operate in, I'd recommend looking up your situation. But for most of you watching this video, it's going to be the state that you reside in and operate in. So, I'll go ahead and select California, but select accordingly. We'll click continue. Now, it's going to ask what the name of our business is. So, the reason why you need to enter your business name is it's going to check to see if this business name is available before we actually file the formation. So, I'm going to go ahead and enter in Charlie Chang. That's my name. Productions. Okay. So, Charlie Chang Productions. I recommend putting your name here, but if you don't want to put it now, you can click skip, but we'll click on continue. Now, it's going to ask us who the main contact for this business is. I'll put my first name, last name, email, and then phone number. We'll then click on continue. It's going to ask you how much business experience you have. This doesn't really matter too much. I'll just put some for now. Feel free to just answer these questions. We'll click on next. Now, it's going to have you appoint your state required registered agent. So, in most states, it is required to have a registered agent. So, the reason why it's really important to have a registered agent is because it's going to keep your own home address private. A registered agent is basically going to be a place where people can mail things. And when you receive mail, they're going to scan it and upload it to your dashboard. It's really important to have one to receive documents from the secretary of state, any legal documents, and so on. So, it's up to you guys if you want to appoint Zen Business as your registered agent. You're going to want to have one. I have one for all of my businesses. So, we'll just go ahead and select that for now. But, of course, choose accordingly. Now, it's going to have us select our different packages. As you can see, there are different fees for each of these packages. So, if you want to do the starter plan, that's $0 plus state fees. it's going to take a little bit more time to process, but you still have that 100% accuracy guarantee, which in my opinion is one of the most important reasons for using a platform like this. Now, their most popular plan is the Pro plan. So, this one is $199 per year. The processing times might be a little bit different based on your state, but for California, this gives 1-day processing. It also includes ongoing compliance. So, this is basically going to be your annual report filings. It also includes your operating agreement templates and your business logo builder. If you want to get the premium plan, that one's a bit more. It includes everything included in pro, but it also includes registered agent as well as a business advisor consultation. Now, it's up to you whether or not you want to choose any of these offers here, but for this video, I'll go ahead and select pro, but of course, you guys can definitely select the starter plan if you don't need any of these things. My take is that if you are going to have Zen Business be your registered agent, it actually makes sense just to get the premium package because you'll save a little bit of money. Now, it's going to ask you if you want to actually open up a business bank account. For now, I'll click on no thanks. And now, it's going to take you to the checkout page. So, you just want to make sure that all this stuff is correct. As you can see, I selected some of the paid packages. And so, essentially, we're paying this formation fee of $399 plus the mandatory California state fees. I could have actually made this zero if I didn't select any of those packages. It just really depends on what you value. If you want to have them basically do everything for you, then yeah, maybe it makes sense to get one of the premium packages. And once everything looks okay, we'll click on continue. We'll want to make sure that this information here is correct. We'll click on save and continue. Then you're going to create an account. We'll click on continue. And now you'll enter in your card information and click on place order. Once you click submit, they're going to start filing your LLC for you. And if there's anything else they need, they will reach out directly to you. But in this whole process, we basically gave them all the information that they need. Yeah. Depending on what state you're forming your LLC in, the time it takes is going to depend, right? It could be same day, it could be weeks. And yeah, you guys saw how simple it was. It was very easy to just go through the questions. One reason why I really like Zen Business is because they just make the whole process super super easy. Basically, anyone can just go through, answer the questions, and then they're going to handle all the paperwork, the filing stuff so that you can have an LLC made properly without any mistakes. Now, I've tried filing my LLC myself before, and I definitely do not recommend it because it's actually a little bit complicated. That's why every time I form a business, I always use a platform like Zen Business to do it for me. It just really ensures that there are no mistakes and trust me you don't want to make a mistake when forming a business. It just leads to a lot of headaches down the road. So basically the big steps that we covered were picking your state. So that's going to be the state that your business is operating in. You're going to choose your business name, set your registered agent, file the formation, get your EIN, and then you're going to want to make sure that you keep your business and personal money separate. The reason why I love making these business formation videos is because I can feel the energy, right? All of you watching this video are at the beginning stages of launching your business. I do want to say being a business owner is the best thing that I've ever done. Yes, it is tough, but it is so rewarding. It's so fulfilling and honestly, it's pretty addicting, right? I love business, and I think you guys will, too. Hopefully, you guys found the video helpful. Again, if you guys want to form your LLC with Zen Business, I'll have a link down below. You can start your LLC for as low as $0 plus state fees, and you just follow the same exact steps you saw in this video, and you'll have your LLC in no time. I'll also drop some more resources down below in the description, particularly a step-by-step written guide if you guys prefer to actually just read something. But yeah, my whole goal is to help you guys be able to form your LLC the best way possible. And hopefully this video was helpful. If you guys got any value from the video, make sure to hit that like button and also subscribe for more content just like this. I do a ton of videos about personal finance, entrepreneurship, AI, basically anything to help you guys live a financially successful life. My name is Charlie. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Peace. Hey, hey, hey.