The spam email that sparked the idea for SnapFile, our little company! Also--our launch announcement.

December 19, 2024
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Business building

Like many business owners, my inbox is often a wasteland of emails offering services I may or may not need (looking at you, LegalZoom). Most of the time, I just hit delete. But after the 5th time of seeing “Do Your BOI Report Now, only $299” I decided to Google this BOI thing.

Just some of my spam emails

The Problem to Solve

Through my initial search, I found a bunch of blogs made by lawyers for lawyers, government documentation (Federal Register 🙀), and the government agency website (FinCEN). How was this so confusing? I decided to make myself a little robot (custom GPT) to ask all of my stupid questions and finally got some clarity on WTF this thing is. How was that so hard?? And how do regular people navigate this kind of confusion? 

Turns out, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) requires nearly all U.S. businesses to file Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) with the government, and that included me. I realized this was yet another regulation I needed to comply with—on top of everything else that comes with running a business.

But when I started looking for a simple way to file my BOI report, I found nothing. The process was confusing, the government portal was clunky, and hiring a lawyer was way too expensive.

All I wanted was a simple tool where I could quickly enter my info and send it directly to the government. 

If I found the law so confusing that I had to build myself a robot to understand it and still couldn’t figure out how to file efficiently, there’s an opportunity to help others with the same problems. A simple affordable online solution didn’t exist… so I decided to build it myself.

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Building a Product

For those following the story, you know I’ve been working on this for a while. 

So here it is! SnapFile: an easy, affordable, and intuitive software solution that helps small business owners like me stay compliant with the Corporate Transparency Act. In just 10 minutes, you can file your BOI report and avoid penalties—instantly online. Sounds so simple 

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What's Next and How to Help

Although it sounds like we’ve made a lot of progress, the journey is just starting. Since I thought of this "brilliant" market to enter, plenty of competitors have launched (maybe not quite as "brilliant" as I hoped). So we have our work cut out for us!  Want to help or show your support for us? Here’s how:

  • Do you own a business (LLC, S-corp, C-corp), serve business clients, manage an HOA, or are a professional who serves those businesses? Do your BOI report with us! 
  • If you have friends, family or colleagues who have businesses or serve business owners, refer them to us!
  • Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok so we look like a real business as we get rolling (fast!).

From now until 10/31, file for $99 with the promo code EARLYFILER40. Use and share liberally :) 

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Entrepreneurship is really hard. I’ve been documenting the highlights, but there are countless problems to solve. We decided to focus on just one of them with SnapFile. Will we be successful in helping other businesses? Will we be successful as a business ourselves? That depends on how well we can execute bringing our solution to customers, and so much of that will depend on our wonderful friends and colleagues supporting us - which so many of you have thus far! 

We have about 2 months until the large end of year deadline, so stay tuned. I will be not only posting for the business but about the business and how it’s going.

So if you’re an LLC, S-corp, C-corp, HOA, you likely need to file your BOI too. SnapFile is here to make it really simple, just like I wished it was earlier in the year when I got that original spam email.