This, at least in the US. Forming an LLC is so fucking expensive in NYC, imma wait till I move to the middle of nowhere for college. Then I’ll start selling battys
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hmmmm im not sure is the truth
i would have to look into the legal aspect
IANAL, but I seem to recall a single owner operated LLC does not protect you from personal liability.
Do we have any lawyers who can clarify?
Edit (In the US), I have no idea abroad.
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How do the existing builders handle liability?
Anyone willing to share?
Your company would take the suing hit I believe.
What do you mean it doesn’t protect you from personal?
I mean from what I have seen of the like 3 packs you’ve posted on here, they do not reach the same level of polish as the “high tier” builders but they look like they do the job
Just trying to be honest
25 packs is nothing to sneeze at though
People would definitely want to see pictures of almost all of them though if you were to start offering here
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IANAL, so I could be very wrong, but
no 100%
honesty is key
im not gonna lie and say i build this best out there when i dont
the question is if they are up to a standard where i can give them to others and trust they wont blow up
of course i would have to go through my laptop and google photos and try to compile the pics together
Maybe you should start a “shua’s battery builds” thread to just showcase your work first?
ALSO
LLC’s and business forming takes a LOT of research. Hours and hours, and even after all that, there’s still a lot of documents and many legal things to look at when forming an LLC. I’ve been looking into it lately, no clue how different it is over there though.
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off course
im more just looking into potential issues first e.g this liability issue (looking into the legal side now)
if i decide and confirm yes then i would do this
After reading into this a bit, it looks like if you have your LLC set up properly, and keep yourself separate (as you should)
You should be fine. But, varies from state to state, so you should always check your local rules.
You should not be using your business to protect yourself from personal liability.
If you have a legitimate battery business, anything you sell should be done through the business (taxes, transactions, etc) and not through yourself. You prove that your company (LLC) is producing the product, not you as an alter-ego.
Also, there are ways to set up an LLC that involve governing bodies including the bylaws and whatnot. It gets complicated very fast
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Pics?
Also don’t make an LLC until you absolutely have to
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This is what I was referring to specifically. I should have said “IANAL, but I seem to recall a single owner operated LLC does may not protect you from personal liability.”
The exact conditions necessary to allow a plaintiff to pierce the LLC veil vary from state to state. However, in general terms, two factors must be present.
First, there must be a unity of interest between the SMLLC and its member. In other words, the injured party must show that the SMLLC is not really a separate entity from its sole member. The legal system has special phrases for this situation, such as that the business is a mere alter ego of its owner, or is a mere instrumentality of its owner.
Second, the injured party must show that piercing the limited liability veil is necessary to avoid either the perpetration of a fraud or an injustice. This usually means showing that the SMLLC owner was intentionally using the company to lie to someone or otherwise harm someone.
It’s important to understand that both factors—unity of interest and fraud or injustice—need to be present in order for the SMLLC member to lose limited liability protection. Unity of interest, alone, without fraud or injustice, generally would not allow someone with a judgment against an SMLLC to gain access to the member’s personal assets.
It’s also important to understand that an owner choosing to organize a business as an SMLLC in order to gain protection from personal liability, by itself, is not a reason for a court to pierce the limited liability company veil. On the contrary, the general desire of a business owner to gain this protection—so long as it’s not abused—is a primary reason why LLCs exist as a business form.
i will upload soon (12:30am here)
more just looking for potential issues and feedback in general about the reasons to or not to go down this route
ALSO, LLC’s are expensive to start lol
800-1500 bucks here.
Then it’s like 800 a year (in california)
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Right I know, I read that. I’m pretty sure what it’s referring to is things closer to fraudulent activities. e.g. starting a LLC to go do stupid stuff as an individual and then if someone sues you, saying it’s the business.
Obviously this is not legal advice, I’ve just been looking at a lot of stuff lately, and talked to some of my co workers about this
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I hope so, but I’d need to talk to a lawyer or two before starting a business selling products that can catch fire if used improperly.
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I don’t know what this perspective is worth, but I’ll offer it.
I started my own LLC, specifically to be the business entity that oversees the legal and financial aspects of everything I’ve come to do as, well, me as a business. I’m a YouTuber, and do so with a goal of it being a profitable business that generates review and educational content in this space. I also started up and run a eskate/PEV repair and custom shop, out of which I build batteries for both clients’ use and for repairs of clients’ PEVs.
I live and operate in New York City, and it was fairly expensive and mildly tedious to get it all set up.
I also took the time to make sure that all business financials were duly separated from my personal finances, and take care to make sure that all purchases and expenses incurred by my business are legitimate and justifiable as business expenses.
I invoice customers, drafted up a Terms & Conditions, and set up my work shop in a way that it is a separate allocation of my home that is used for business, and can be plainly seen as being set up that way.
I’ve been advised by several other business owners I know, many of which (like me) quit their job to work on their own. There are many ways to make sure that your business goings on don’t pierece the corporate veil, so to speak, and it’s important to continue to operate in good faith to the business to maintain the veil. This often means that I end up being less profitable than I may want, but as I continue to navigate this world, I am continously calmed by sacrificing money in order to keep some kind of peace of mind.
That being said, and on to the subject of batteries, I can’t say for certain what number of batteries makes any one builder able or qualified to build for others as a business.
I wasn’t really comfortable with others owning my work until I was at about my 15th pack, maybe. However, that was after some destructive testing, many hundreds of dollars of cells that went to waste, and accruing a decent set of not just building, but testing equipment. I had the privilege of a full time job when I was building my shop up, and I know many don’t have that luxury.
However, I’ve seen the early work that builders like @JoeyZ5 did, and felt embarrassed by what I thought was decent. Until I felt that my work could hang with the likes of Joe, Artem, Ben, Jackson, Alex, Al, I wasn’t totally comfortable handing it off to people. There’s of course compromise there, but generally that’s how I felt.
These days, I generally build somewhere from 6-12 batteries a week, mostly for one client. Eskate packs are a relatively small part of it currently. Although that shifts anyway, so who’s to say. Each batch is better than the previous, and that’s mainly because I continue to look at the work of others, ask questions, and try new things.
I’ll say, that in doing repairs on boards, I come across commercial work that makes me feel much better about packs that I myself doubt sometimes.
There is no one answer to the larger question of “How do I start making batteries as a business?” In my very limited experience, there are only many many smaller answers to the many many smaller questions that eventually lead one in a certain direction. And that direction itself is uncertain.
@Halbj613 I haven’t seen enough of your current work to comment on your ability. But I have learned enough to know that if you show samples of it, and the likes of the people I mentioned above make commentary on it, you listen. I listened, and continue to, and I’m better for it.
/TEDtalk
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I cant wait to make an “Evan’s nuclear bomb prototyping zone” thread
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If we get some time, we should talk a bit about this at esk8con, I’m interested to hear a little bit about your setup
Looking at SP for mine, LLC is not worth it for my profits and setup at this time
IMO this is something we can never, ever assume. We always need to accept that this can happen at any time…no matter how unlikely. Almost always due to factors not in our control, but always a possibility.
Since the consequences of a pack catching fire can be so severe it’s worth our time to do whatever we can to even further lower the odds of it happening.
This risk needs to guide how we set up and run the business, how the contract with the customer is worded, and how we educate our customers in proper care of a pack to manage their expectations and significantly reduce the chance of anything going wrong. Almost everyone has no idea just how powerful these packs are.
Making the pack is only a small part of the business. 
I wish you luck though!
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