Ask HN: Services for Shutting Down a Startup?

2 points by Felicia_Juhn 13 hours ago

Going through the difficult process of winding down my company.

Looking for recommendations on services that helped make this smoother, whether legal, financial, operational, or administrative.

What worked well for you? What would you do differently? Any services designed explicitly for startup shutdowns?

Thank you.

kamphey 10 hours ago

I used to ask Stripe Atlas for this kind of service. Because they made it so easy to spin up a company in 2 weeks, I thought it would be helpful to shut down a company too. But alas they haven't done it.

In general it was about $2,500 the last time I did it and only really needed a Lawyer to help file the final taxes and submit the paperwork to shut down to Delaware. Will be different if you have a company set up in a different state. Financial and Legal is the only thing you need to focus on. You can literally shut down the operations yourself.

The key issue that I found is that there is no emotional support. It's hard mentally, spiritually, and ultimately emotionally. Sometimes it's hard to actually go through the motions, the actions, the steps you need to do.

At least the legal part must be handled. You can literally keep the "company" as a personal asset and try to run it as a side-project or a hobby if you'd like. Many bootstrappers and indiehackers do that when they start a business.

I found a good support network of people who understand what you're going through can help. A simple telegram group, or whatsapp group, or even an online forum here should be able to help you with the emotional roller coaster. Feel free to express more about what you're going through and others might be able to share insights or just wallow in pity along with you.