Business Identity
When You Want More
Starting a business means talking with your state government, the federal government, county clerks, the bank, vendors, landlords, freelancers, and of course, potential clients and customers right away. They will all require varying degrees of information about your business—name, street address, phone number, email address, tax identification number, website, and more. These details add up to something: a Business Identity.
If you’re not ready, you may end up patching together a Business Identity piecemeal or creating one closely tied to your personal identity. This exposes your personal information and damages credibility. Early choices harden fast, and you get just one chance at a good first impression. At Northwest, we build Business Identities the right way—with privacy, control, and efficiency at the center. Here’s how it works.
The Core Pieces of a Business Identity
Like a house, you want your business to have a strong foundation. If you pour it wrong, the cracks will come later. These are the foundational pieces:
- Business name
- Entity type (like an LLC, corporation, or nonprofit)
- Registered agent information
- Business address
- EIN
These are the details that the state and federal government will use to identify your business. We can provide each of these pieces. Once you have these details, you have a foundation. Next, your house needs walls. Windows. Entrances. At the next level, a Business Identity is made up of your:
- Domain name
- Website
- Phone number
- Email address(es)
Once you have these pieces, your Business Identity is ready for you to move in and start using it. You can talk to your clients, customers, vendors, the bank, landlords, and whoever else you need to through your Business Identity. Not your personal identity.
As your business grows, you can continue to develop your Business Identity. When you want more, Northwest can help you:
- Apply for a federal trademark
- Purchase multiple domain names
- Register for Doing Business As (DBA) names
- Expand your business into new states
When you start a business, you start making choices right away about your Business Identity. Early choices harden fast. At Northwest, we’ll make sure you get a complete Business Identity on day one.
Your Business Identity Can Protect—or Expose—Your Privacy
We’ve seen many unprepared small business owners start doing business through their personal identity instead of a Business Identity. This looks like:
- Listing yourself as your own registered agent
- Using your home address as your business address on public documents
- Handing out your SSN to vendors or landlords
- Posting your home address rather than a virtual office address on your website
- Selling things on your social media channels instead of a secure website
- Listing your cell phone number on your website
When you’re in the early days of starting a business, these mistakes are understandable—but not always reversible. What goes online usually stays online.
That’s where we can help. When you form your LLC with Northwest or hire Northwest to be your registered agent, you’ll be ready to start doing business with a professional Business Identity right away. And when you hire Northwest, you don’t have to opt into privacy protections. You get Privacy by Default®, which means we’ll never sell your data and we’ll automatically minimize your exposure whenever possible as we build your Business Identity.
A Business Identity Owned by You, Not Us
We’re independently owned. No shareholders. No third-party “partners.” We don’t answer to anyone but you. We love being independent, so we’ve built all of our services with independence in mind. We want you to own your Business Identity, so that even if you decide to part ways with us, you can take it with you.
What it looks like to own your Business Identity:
- A website built on open-source software that belongs to you, not built on another company’s proprietary platform.
- A domain you can keep for the life of your business, even if you decide to switch domain registrars.
- A private phone number that belongs to you and keeps your personal number private.
- Custom email addresses ending in a shared domain.
When you use a patchwork of different companies and vendors to assemble your Business Identity, you end up with multiple logins and invoices, plus platforms that don’t work well together. With Northwest, you can manage every aspect of your business—from paperwork to your website to EIN obtainment—all within one account.
We don’t outsource our services—everything we offer is built in-house. It’s a key part of our Manifesto. It takes longer this way, but it means we have more control. And that means you have more control.
Northwest Business Identity Service
When you hire Northwest to start your business, you’ll get instant access to:
- Articles of Organization or Incorporation filed with the state
- One year of registered agent service
- A business address for public documents
- A business domain name
- A pre-built, open-source website with SSL security
- A professional email address
- A second number that routes to your existing device
- Corporate Guides® who can answer your questions
- Privacy by Default®
This is your foundation. We have plans for all our products that grow as your business grows. When You Want More, we’ll be ready to help with trademarks, foreign registrations, DBAs, virtual office service, EINs, multiple domain names, and any other filing you’ll ever need to do.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A Business Identity and a brand cover much of the same ground, but a Business Identity is wider in scope. A brand is the story a company tells the public about itself and the feelings it tries to evoke, while a Business Identity encompasses much more than that—it’s all of the defining qualities and details about a business, not just the ones used for marketing.
A Business Identity is the foundation of your marketing strategy. Earning your customers’ trust starts with a strong Business Identity—an official entity, a legit business address for public filings, a local phone number with a professional voicemail greeting, a modern website, and a professional email address and domain name. Once you have these key pieces, you can use them to start reaching your clients and customers (while protecting your privacy and work/life balance).
Ideally, you’d register your domain name and business name at the same time. That way, you can be sure each is available. But we know sometimes it doesn’t work out that way, and you may just need to take a first step (instead of two at once). So, here’s our advice. If you’re already selling something as a sole proprietor, start an LLC right away—this will give you personal liability protection. If you’re in the planning stages still, and your business will primarily operate online, lock down your domain name first. This can help you establish your digital presence early. At Northwest, we can help you either way.
We’re big fans of the LLC for small business owners. LLCs provide limited liability protection, some flexible tax options, and a super laid-back management structure that basically allows you to run it the way you want. Plus, in most states, it’s relatively affordable to start and maintain.
It depends. Trademarks are complicated. As soon as you start using your business name and selling goods and services, your business name likely has trademark rights—even without registering it. But registering a federal trademark gets you stronger protections across a broader geographical area. Filing to register a trademark now gives you an earlier filing date, which can be helpful if anyone ever infringes on your trademark rights.