I Help Non-US Residents Launch Businesses And Make $80K/Month
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
My name is Ugur, I’m the founder of TheITIN. We are the best US business incorporation company made for non-US people.
We help non-Americans to set up entities in all 50 states, obtain their Tax ID number EIN and ITIN, provide business addresses, help them to set up their US Banking, payment providers like Stripe and PayPal, selling platforms like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon and maintain their businesses with taxes and more.
Our customers are mostly first-time entrepreneurs that were born on the wrong side of the map. They can’t set these payment providers or selling platforms with their home countries' bank accounts or entities, so they can not be part of the global marketplace, or tap into the US marketplace. We served 3000+ customers in 150+ countries
We’re a small global team of 11, based all around the world. My business brings about $35k a month in profit and $80k in revenue. I personally don’t have any legal background, I’m not from the US but when setting up a US entity as a non-American I believe I’m one of the most knowledgeable humans out there!
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I am Turkish, I definitely was not the brightest in my school years back in Turkey, pretty decent student I would say, the only strength and interest I had was languages, so in high school I decided to choose language. My mom and my brother were against my decision, they said I’d be an English teacher max, even though that's hard, not a good career etc. My father always encouraged me to go with what I like and things I enjoy. So choosing language in high school was the best decision in my life.
For university my plan was to study in a Russian country since it was cheap and not far from Turkey. I started taking courses during my high school years, and I realized after about 4 months I was picking up the language so I decided that Russian is not a language that was going to take me four years to learn. At that time I had a friend who wanted to go abroad and study with me, he said why don’t we do Chinese and gave me the idea, which was the second best decision in my life, going to China.
Enough with languages my life in China was great. I did social jobs and made a good living, saved a lot around $27k, and in 2017 got into selling things online on Amazon from the heart of manufacturing China to the US. Back then there were not many people who were selling on Amazon.
The only thing I did was work hard, stay consistent, and try to enjoy it as much, be grateful. It’s all this simple. I don't believe why no one else can do the thing they want to do.
When I was setting up my own Amazon Account I realized I could not set up a .com account either with my Turkish or my Chinese bank accounts, and I did some research and came up with a solution of setting up an entity for myself in the US and applying to seller central as a business.
When I did the research at that time, all the business incorporator services were helping US customers only, they were not even accepting payments from non-US applications, simply denying non-US bank cards. I realized there was a gap and it was the time many people started coming on YouTube talking about eCom and I said, there’s a need for this and it’ll go big!
It was very fortunate that I worked with the company that opened my company, they were serving non-US customers, and thanks to my YouTube channel I was documenting my Amazon experience (my Amazon FBA journey was definitely not so successful).
I did great, they did not, they were not taking care of the customers well, taking advantage, and lying from time to time, which made me have to go and take my own path. Even if it’s them who taught me most of the things, I didn't want to be apart after two years working with them. I had about $30k in my bank and it was time for me to take my own path.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
So after working with those people, we decided to focus on one product more, we realized all the big, old business incorporators like Inc file, and Northwest Registered agent was slowly aware of the non-US market as well and started even marketing to outside of the US. We said we could not compete with these businesses which have thousands of employees, so we want to go Niche and be a brand for ITIN, and got our domain theitin.com
It did work well, thanks to ITIN we got attention from many content creators who covered us on their YouTube channel, and when it comes to the non-US because of the importance of needing an ITIN many do choose us. We even partnered with two competitors who also focus to non-US market, they raised over 15m cash, Firstbase and Doola companies make hundreds of formations every month, they choose us to take care of their customer's ITINs.
Describe the process of launching the business.
So basically my friend from my hometown Ekrem was also working with us when i was with my partners. I got him in and he was doing great! It was his encouragement that made us launch our site, and we said okay let’s co-found the new domain together.
For our business launch, since we do not have the legal background, and I did not want to continue working with the previous company we worked with, we had to find IRS agents who could obtain the tax ID numbers for our customers. My co-founder Ekrem, since we decided that he would be the head of organizations, he did the research and he was able to connect me with a very good agent from the IRS who is still our contractor today.
We may have spent around $500 on our website and everything, no salaries for anyone and after that, it was time for execution, we did reach as many Youtubers and Facebook groups as we could, and talked about what we offer, fortunately, some creators gave us a chance, since i knew them before, and boom we in the business!
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
What I believe that we did right was influencer marketing. The more people covered us on YouTube and talked about our service that costs a couple hundred dollars made those people trust us and give us a shot. Today around 40-50% of our traffic comes from our revenue share partners.
We did great by engaging, targeting, and making a real connection, not a huge reach out to all. We always hop on a call with any creator we reach for them to see who we are and what we do.
Currently, our services have been covered by 40+ Youtubers and around 20+ actively sending leads every month. Here’s one very simple video by one of the earliest coverage by Argentinian eCom guy Santiago (Not even a YouTuber)
A recent coverage in English was from Myles Dunphy. (He is our customer 100% organically, and gave a shoutout in his video since he liked our service.)
This is another small creator however performs great because it explains what ITIN is the best, and the importance, especially for people who already have their LLC and EIN thinking like, will I need ITIN as well?
Our business changed a lot once we launched our Google ads after about our second year. Since people directly search on Google for a solution to our services, it does work great. 20% of our customers find us through Google.
Besides, many people do refer to their friends and we have a great revenue share model for anyone who refers, so it also works and word of mouth brings around 10-15% of traffic.
Lastly, as a founder who makes key-to-the-point videos my channel brings about 3-5% of our traffic, unfortunately, my channel is absolutely not where I want it to be, which can actually have a significant impact on our business if it was a channel that blew up! I’ll keep trying 🙂
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Honestly, whenever there’s a conversation or a question like, oh what’s your goal, what’s your dream, etc., I feel like I did achieve my very first dream and have been living it for some time. I’m fully remote, making enough to do whatever, today for example enjoying my Saturday in Bali which I visit often.
I'm at this co-working place I’m a member of right after having a great gym session in the morning. I go whenever (as much as I’ve visas hahah) and do whatever. My other dream was to make my parents proud and see them in their life. Fortunately, we enjoy it together. I take both of my parents on vacations every year, change their car/phone whatever they need. (My mom sometimes asks stuff non-stop)
Last 3 years our business grew by around 200% in a row, and this year our goal is only growing close to 100% I do everything as much as I can, which makes me feel like, the reason for stressing a lot won’t make much of a big difference, so I decided to leave my life, and I realized, it’s actually super simple we complicate it when we happy that’s the biggest ROI!
I believe ITIN will have much importance for the non-US to conduct US business and will be an obligation, when that day comes, I think it can be our overnight success that we waited for years. We firstly want to dominate ITIN and be the only provider, the brand, the name, and I’m sure there’ll always be opportunities that can change constantly, whenever the right one comes, I’m sure we will take it.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Mistakes, and missed opportunities, I believe there definitely should be, however overall, I never look at them as such. I think they happened which added something for me to use somewhere or will need someday. Experiencing and tasting as much is a necessity, every day I feel better and calmer in my mind.
Some of the good decisions I made believe in not pushing myself on so much, comparing myself with only myself, and realizing that it’s a wonderful life and that I have so much more than we can appreciate.
The meditation I’ve been practicing took me to wherever I want in this life. I would say many people got confused or went too much with this. I found mine 14 years ago, and I practiced 10 minutes a day almost every day. (In one year I missed a maximum of 10-15 days) I kept it simple, didn’t go crazy with it, did Ayuashca, or claimed that I am different, or someone else, kept it to myself and it worked well.
I’m very good with my time, I make it count, never waste it, and I believe I’m efficient. There are about 5-6 months every year I try to go hard, isolate myself from everything in full monk mode, which is when we have the real push in our business.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We host our customers in a user base that’s called SPP, we don’t have anything technical in our product, both me and my co-founder Ekrem are just hustlers.
We use Whereby to make calls, it’s like Zoom on the browser, one click connect.
We do transfer to our partners through Wise and Veem (best for USD bank wires).
Our website is on Wordpress, with woocommerce, Stripe is how we issue credit card payments.
These are the main tools I can think of that we use.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Think and Grow Rich is a book that shows the true power of the mind and how things can be done when it’s truly accepted and believed internally.
Recently I read “Subtle art of Not Giving a F” which was great tells and shows maybe we should not care that much and it’ll happen, i relate this with energy because when you care and think so much you subconsciously reject it, it should feel like the normal ordinary thing ever.
Sam Walton’s Made in America is another, very simple one, that shows if you do the right thing and believe it just happens.
Again I want to write here my sidenote: a lot of people got confused and says oh okay if it’s only on the mind I can make it happen as well, In Sam Walton's book, he never mentions the hard work, only in the beginning he says once, something like: If you think hard work is not part, don’t even bother.
That’s the only way to make your mind accept the thing you want to achieve, you need to give it all so have that confidence and feel that you’re ready to take it. That’s the law of attraction, some people are confused these days. I remember the days I bled for my business.
My favorite podcast out of all is “Startup Therapy” You have to listen especially if ever you thought about going for VC, I believe startup therapy listeners are elite. It tells how the reality is by people who actually did it and are kind of done with it.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
The only thing I did was work hard, stay consistent, and try to enjoy it as much, be grateful. It’s all this simple. I don't believe why no one else can do the thing they want to do.
I’d say my mistake was taking it super seriously in the beginning for the first few years, maybe it’s those years that paid off but I had to sacrifice a lot, and stressed myself a lot. Things got better once I cared less and focused on what I was getting done.
My recommendation is, sit down and think about it, are you gonna stay consistent and be dedicated, how much do you want it, and what do you do it for?
Good things absolutely will not come easy, that’s why they’re good, no matter how much you like it, it’s your favorite thing. It’s tough, so make sure you have the stomach, not having or not working will not make you any less, I know thousands of gurus live fake-ass bullshit lives and are not actually happy.
There are times I consider and miss just working, having not much responsibilities/stress and like a regular job.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We believe Google ads are crucial for us. We tried to work with over 5+ people who are good with Google ads, but almost all came and tried the same thing, and did not deeply get into the details of what we do. We have never been able to scale, but we have a very good open door/position for anyone who can be our full-time digital marketer.
We look for Sales/Rep marketers, in different languages besides Spanish, English, and Arabic. We have proven distribution with talented people who can make our services business expand to their region/home country.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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