Business Structure

So my best friend and I recently had a few beers and talked business. He is very well known in the community, great at networking, and has many quality business contacts. We eventually got to the topic of a photography business. He knows nothing of photography. But knows a lot about business. We are thinking of starting an LLC as sort of an umbrella company for our many business ideas (we drink beer and come up with ideas, a lot, lol).He wants to be a business development mind and I am the creative mind, so to speak. I think this has potential as my current day job won't allow me to network or develop business much, while his day job almost demands it.

My question is about business structure. I have already invested some time and money into my brand, and I am not yet sure he will want to continue with what I have chosen. So can you have multiple lines of business under one LLC? I would have the LLC house everything, and then just use the photography brand for marketing, etc. Is this allowed? I am almost sure it is but wanted to check. If it is legal, what connection would there need to be between the "ABC123, LLC" and the Brandon Maxwell Photography brand? I obviously would have the LLC on all legal documents, financial/billing items, etc. and just have the photography brand on my business cards and website.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Also, feel free to comment anything you feel would be helpful, not just the question I have posed.

Edit: Upon further research, I think simply creating an LLC with separate DBAs for each line of business is the ticket. Any thoughts or potential risks of this approach?

You see businesses promoted under their own name, and a small "division of XYZ Corp, LLC" burried in the footer all the time. I don't think there would be anything wrong with that. A couple of questions you need to address. What is the business advantage of doing this? Is there significant overhead cost consolodation with the other "divisions" that make this a good model?

Also, what about risk? Ar the other divisions significantly more risky, where if they were to be saddled with a big legal problem (for example) it would drain your photography division?

In short, I can see advantages and disadvantages either way. I think you need to seriously sit down and explore these differing aspects. As a side note . . . beer may be a good fertilizer for ideas, but is not a good lubricant when actually executing the final plans . . . just a thought . . .

golfecho wrote in post #15653891
You see businesses promoted under their own name, and a small "division of XYZ Corp, LLC" burried in the footer all the time. I don't think there would be anything wrong with that. A couple of questions you need to address. What is the business advantage of doing this? Not really sure there is an advantage, other than I want to include my friend in the business and I cannot do this as a sole proprietor unless I just hire him as a consultant. Which, is not a bad idea and one that needs to be further studied. Is there significant overhead cost consolodation with the other "divisions" that make this a good model? Not really, but for now we only have one division. But I see your point and that is important to consider.

Also, what about risk? Ar the other divisions significantly more risky, where if they were to be saddled with a big legal problem (for example) it would drain your photography division? I definitely see this as a great point. Some of our other ideas (design/build construction, real estate, etc.) are definitely more risky and tying them together with the photography seems not ideal. Most of the other ideas we have are so much different from photography that they would probably become their own LLC if we ever decided to pursue them.

In short, I can see advantages and disadvantages either way. I think you need to seriously sit down and explore these differing aspects. That is definitely our plan. As a side note . . . beer may be a good fertilizer for ideas, but is not a good lubricant when actually executing the final plans . . . just a thought . . . And a great thought. We definitely know enough to not include alcohol and associated bar settings when it gets down to serious business. But thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for the thoughts. You have me thinking in directions I hadn't considered yet. And that is always a good thing. I thought about hiring him as a consultant, but I want him to feel included, not just me using him for his contacts and paying him a fee. I think it would be more fun and ultimately more profitable if we both have an ownership stake in it. We have other potential revenue streams (non-photographic) to which he can contribute greatly, so including him as an owner and not a consultant makes more sense to me. Does that make sense?