Workbook
Your Business Already Exists. Now Build It on Paper.
The immigrant business formalization workbook — EIN, LLC, bank account, bookkeeping, first tax filing.
You already built a business. This workbook builds the foundation under it.
For the immigrant entrepreneur whose business is running — cleaning, driving, building, selling — and who needs the legal and financial structure documented on paper.
The Name It First Experience
Millions of immigrant-owned small businesses operate in a legal and financial grey zone — not from intention, but from a lack of access to the plain-language guidance that native-born entrepreneurs receive through professional networks and family history. This workbook gives immigrant business owners a structured process for moving from informal operation to formal business entity: EIN, LLC or sole proprietor, business bank account, basic bookkeeping, and first tax filing. The output is not a business plan. It is The Business Formalization Checklist — the legal and financial foundation your business needs to grow.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What would change for your business if you had a real bank account and an EIN?
- What are you already doing — informally, without a name or structure — that is a business?
- What would you need to make this official — and what is stopping you?
- What does a sustainable version of this business look like — and what is your first real step?
Research basis
Research on immigrant entrepreneurship (Fairlie, Lofstrom) documents both the high rate of self-employment among immigrant workers and the systematic barriers to formalization created by language access and institutional knowledge gaps. Financial Socialization research (Gudmunson, Danes) applies to the absence of inherited business knowledge among first-generation immigrant entrepreneurs. Behavioral Economics (Kahneman, Thaler) provides the framework for understanding why the friction of formalization causes postponement even when postponement creates greater costs. Community Organizing principles (Alinsky) apply to the design of accessible, community-relevant business development resources.
Choose your format.
Every format asks the same questions and produces the same document.
Print Paperbackpersonalize
A real book and a pen. Write in the margins. The most permanent version of you on a page.
$22.99
eBook + journal
The full guide on any screen, with a companion journal to write your answers by hand.
Not available
Audiobook
We read every question and every scenario aloud. For the commute, the walk, the dishes.
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Hardcoverpersonalize
The keepsake edition — sewn, ribboned, made to sit on a shelf and be returned to.
Not available
Digital Fill + membership+membership
Answer on screen. Your responses save as you go and assemble into your finished document.
$12.99
Hands-Free Interactive + membership+membership
Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
Not available
Everything packages
The Paperback Everything Package
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The Hardcover Everything Package
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The Premium Hardcover Everything Package
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Choose your pace.
The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
Essential path
Shorter sessions. The questions that go directly to the document.
Full depth
Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
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