indiehackers-steps: a README-only guide to registering a US company as a solo developer

What indiehackers-steps actually is, and who it is written for

This is not a library you install. The repository contains a single README.md, and the README describes itself as a record of the author's own path to building an overseas indie business: from registering a US company, to banking, to taking payments through Stripe, to choosing a workflow and marketing. The stated audience is the solo developer or small team, and the README makes that explicit when it discusses entity choice: an individual or small organisation can pick an LLC, while a company that needs to raise funding can pick a CORP, but the tutorial says it is aimed at the majority of indie developers and therefore chooses the LLC.

That framing decides what the document is good for. It answers the question a developer asks before writing any product code: what legal and financial plumbing has to exist before Stripe can pay me. It does not answer product, pricing or distribution questions in any depth. The growth chapter is a table of contents with headings such as how to find influencers, how to build up a ProductHunt account, and how to do SEO. Those sections are listed, not written. Treat the repository as a checklist with cost annotations, not as a course.

The Wyoming LLC to Stripe chain, step by step

The core of the README is a numbered sequence with dollar figures and elapsed time attached to each step. The author chose Wyoming because the README states the state has no corporate tax and no personal tax, and because any nationality can register there. Registration goes through wyomingagents.com, where the README says to fill in basic details, choose LLC as the entity type, enter your real address without embellishment, and leave the paid add-ons at their defaults because they can be purchased later. The reported cost is 150 dollars and the reported wait is about one week, after which you receive the articles of organisation and company documents.

The EIN comes next. The README points at the IRS page for applying for an EIN, which it notes is available in Chinese, but the author used a freelancer on fiverr instead, sending the articles of organisation and receiving the EIN plus an IRS receipt in about three days at a reported cost of 35 dollars plus 8.17 dollars in platform fees. The README passes on the freelancer's advice to wait a week before registering Stripe so the EIN propagates.

Mercury comes third. With a company and an EIN the application is described as simple, taking roughly three business days for initial review and two more for address verification. The address proof must carry your name and address, either a utility bill or a bank statement; the author used a utility bill plus a household register because the utility account was in a parent's name, and notes that a rental contract or property certificate can substitute. Stripe is last and is described as easy once the EIN exists, reported at one day. The README also lists a Wise business account with a stated 31 dollar opening fee, requiring the US company, EIN, a domestic address, a passport and a linked US bank account such as Mercury.

Installing nothing: how to use the repository as a working checklist

There is no package, no CLI and no configuration file here. Use is reading the README and following its order. The only commands worth writing down are the ones that verify what you have received, and the README's own advice about the registration form is a good example: it tells developers who hit an error to open the browser console, because one reported case was a password that failed validation for lacking mixed case.

The repository itself is fetched like any other:

git clone https://github.com/hua1995116/indiehackers-steps.git
cd indiehackers-steps
ls

The listing shows README.md as the only top-level entry, which confirms there is nothing to build. What you should see is a single Markdown file whose table of contents maps to the six numbered steps. From there the workflow is to open the provider pages the README links to and work down the list, recording your own dates and amounts as you go, because the figures in the README are one person's report and will drift.

Where the guide is already out of date

The BOI section is the clearest example. Beneficial Ownership Information reporting is listed as step five, and the heading itself carries the note that it is obsolete and not required after 2025-03-26. The body underneath still explains the 9 dollar agency filing on wyomingagents.com, the two cases for companies registered before and after 2024, and the need to have a passport ready. A reader who skims the table of contents and jumps to the anchor will read instructions that the author has since withdrawn in the heading. That is a documentation hazard, not a reason to skip the repository, but it means every regulatory claim needs a check against the primary source before you act on it.

The same caution applies to the cost figures. Registration at 150 dollars, EIN at 35 dollars plus 8.17 dollars in platform fees, Wise at 31 dollars, tax filing at 50 dollars: these are dated observations from the author's own transactions. Nothing in the repository states a review schedule, and the last push to the default branch was on 2026-05-19, so the file has not been touched in the four months before this writing. The cloud credit chapter is in the same position, with a list of providers and claimed values where several entries are marked as already obtained and others, including Alibaba Cloud and Huawei Cloud, are left blank.

The tax and compliance parts are the thinnest

The README says the author filed forms 1120 and 5472 through fiverr, that the seller provides a form to fill in, and that the seller handles the final paperwork and faxes it to the IRS, with a screenshot of the form and a stated cost of 50 dollars. It also links to a tweet for related information. That is the whole treatment. There is no discussion of deadlines, of what happens if the forms are late, of state-level annual report obligations in Wyoming, or of how personal tax residency interacts with a US LLC. The repository is silent on all of it.

This is the section where the guide is most obviously a personal log rather than a reference. If your situation is anything other than a single owner with no US presence and no US-source income beyond software sales, the README will not cover you, and it does not pretend to. The honest reading is that the tax chapter tells you a service exists and roughly what it costs, and nothing more.

Alternatives, and why the README's approach differs

The obvious alternative is a registered agent or incorporation service that bundles the state filing, the EIN application and a registered address into one purchase, often with a year of agent service included. The difference is who holds the sequence. In this repository the author splits the work: a Wyoming agent for the company, a fiverr freelancer for the EIN, Mercury for banking, Stripe for payments, Wise for receiving money from other regions. Each step is separate, each has its own fee, and you assemble the chain yourself. The bundled route collapses that into one invoice and one support channel, at the cost of less visibility into what each part actually costs.

A second alternative is to skip the US entity entirely and sell through a merchant-of-record platform that handles tax and payment collection on your behalf. That changes the problem rather than solving it the same way: you give up the US bank account and the direct Stripe relationship that the README spends six steps building, and you accept the platform's fees and payout schedule instead. The README does not discuss this route, and for a developer whose only goal is to charge for a small product it may be the shorter path. The repository is written for someone who wants the entity, the bank account and the payment processor under their own name.

Maintenance, licence and the cost of keeping up

The repository is not archived, and the last push to the default branch was on 2026-05-19. There are no releases. The README does not state a licence, and no licence file appears in the top-level entries, which means the default position applies: the author has not granted reuse rights explicitly. If you want to translate, republish or adapt the text, that is a conversation with the author rather than something the repository permits on its face.

The ongoing cost is not software maintenance, it is regulatory drift. A US company registered in Wyoming carries an annual report obligation, the EIN and bank details have to stay consistent across providers, and the BOI heading shows how quickly a section can go stale. Anyone using this repository should plan to re-verify each provider's current requirements at the moment they act, because the document itself carries no update cadence and no changelog beyond the commit history.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt this repository as a starting checklist if you are a solo developer outside the US who wants a Wyoming LLC and Stripe payouts, and read the cost and timeline figures as one person's report rather than a quote. Do not treat it as an operating manual for a funded company, since the README itself routes CORP structures elsewhere, and do not rely on the BOI section, which the author marked obsolete after 2025-03-26. Before you spend anything, confirm the current Wyoming filing fee and annual report requirement with the state, confirm whether FinCEN still requires BOI reporting, and check the tax filing deadlines for your own situation.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. hua1995116/indiehackers-steps on GitHub
2. Issues
3. README